


The Doppler Bridge

by AnonAnton



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Anal Sex, Angels, Angst, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Barebacking, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Blow Jobs, Demons, Eventual Happy Ending, Frottage, Hurt Castiel, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Imprisonment, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multiple Worlds, Parallel Universes, Pining Dean, Police Officer Dean, Rimming, Sexual Abuse, Slavery, Slow Burn, Somnophilia, Switch Cas, Switch Dean, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-20 19:51:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 86,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12440409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonAnton/pseuds/AnonAnton
Summary: Two hundred years ago, a catastrophic explosion had just ended a war. On another world an angel stepped through the newly created wall of heat haze filling his horizon. The angel was flung from world to world, losing his power and sanity until he landed back on his planet, his broken body and cracked mind beginning another war. This war would last centuries, cross worlds, and converge on an unknowing Earth. An Earth that is in disarray. Climate change has altered the planet beyond recognition. Rain falls constantly, the sun never shines and the Government has given up, focusing instead on the worlds beyond their own.-Dean Winchester, Police Officer third class, is tired of his life. He is directionless, fed up of living on his father’s terms, but unsure and unable to choose his own way. That is, until a bleeding, broken and battered man is all but dropped at his feet, giving him something to care about.Castiel, tortured and raped, has a mission. And he can’t do it alone. After nearly a lifetime of without a friend or ally, knowing only pain, can he learn to trust the one friend that is thrust upon him in time?





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Doppler Bridge has been a story of mine in the running for almost a year now. I started writing this back in November 2016 for my first Nanowrimo and I'm now publishing it for my first DCBB, 2017. I have a huge number of people to thank for this, including everyone who cheered me on, who let me know they were interested in it, who reblogged the promo post... it goes on! Frankly, I'm amazed to get to the point of finishing this, and finishing it to a standard that I'm happy to publish too. In fairness, I still think it has a little way to go... But, it's done sufficiently for now. I hope you enjoy it.  
> I need to thank a few people by name. I do apologise if I've missed anyone. After a year, I honestly can't remember who's done me the honour of helping. The first, and foremost, as ever, is the wonderful [Shannon_kind.](https://shannon-kind.tumblr.com/) Without this superstar this fic would be the ramblings of an idiot. My second beta , [Northenhearts](http://northernhearts.tumblr.com/), did me a spectacular job, and I can't thank her enough either. My dad too, although I'm yet to implement his suggestions, deserves a mention too. Lastly, [Unforth](http://unforth-ninawaters.tumblr.com/), although she may not know it, helped me a lot in the very start with answering my random questions.  
> On to the art. I am seriously bowled over by the astounding drawings the legend of [Cenedrariva](http://cenedrariva.tumblr.com/) has created for me. I can't get over how amazingly she has rendered what I had in my head. They are truly perfect. You have my eternal love for these!  
> I just hope you enjoy this story. I would be honoured to hear your thoughts both here and on [my Tumblr.](http://anonymousantonym.tumblr.com/)

There was nothing but blackness; cloying, thick and heavy.

A hissing broke the blackness in half, the sound new, echoing and weak—getting louder. It became a drum roll—barbaric, agonising in its intensity—until it was broken by a guttural noise, a groan, a sob, a whine. Then that too was shattered by an unnatural screaming wailing.

Pain spread through him in great belting waves, from lightning stabbing at his temples to the bone-deep ache in his lower back. The pain brought him back to himself, the blackness no longer encompassing. He drifted; simply _feeling,_ for long moments. He allowed each wave and peak of pain to hit him, just flowing with it, listening to the never ending pattering sound, familiar and yet foreign. Rain. Rain on nothing but stone.

Castiel flinched as glaring, blinding light filtered through a tiny crack between his eyelids. He coughed out a groan in protest, but forced his eyes open further, blinking away the rain. He lay on the cold hard ground, pain rolling up and down his right side, rain dripping down his face. The light held no warmth—was not be the sun—too cold, too white.

His vision pitched and spun as Castiel tried to fix his gaze on a point other than the light. Nausea rose quickly, but he managed to ascertain that, despite the white glow in the sky, all else was dark. In front of him the ground was gray, dark and pitted, embedded with tiny stones and pieces of shale. The grayness continued as far as he could see—the dark swallowing up everything but the glistening redness thrown up by the rain in the bleak glow of the strange light.

It was overwhelming—there was too much. He allowed himself to sink into half hidden memories. Flashes of color, whirling and broken, blackness and light— Even that was too much, and Castiel let it all fade away.

-

Castiel awoke to the pain. It emanated from almost the entirety of his right side. Shoulder, hip, leg, wrist and elbow. Castiel knew now that he must have fallen to the ground on his right side; the scratching pain simply the annoyance of grazes, open and sore with the pressure of his weight on them. With that knowledge, he could block the pain from his mind. He had done _that_ before. The dull, residual pain around his wrists and ankles was similarly easy to ignore, just like the throbbing in his behind. With understanding came the ability to set it aside. It was not important.

That left him with the brewing, pulsing, brain-shaking agony within his head, and the jarring stabbing from his ear—pain the equal of his worst nightmares. Each rain drop hitting him sent shock waves of hurt directly to the core of his brain. He tried to drift, to forget, to feel nothing, and found himself wondering where he was. He knew he had arrived in the right place generally. He could _feel_ it. But specifically? That eluded him.

It was a stench that brought back his train of thought and had him wrinkling his nose in distaste. Taste too had returned in a rancid flood.

He could smell the rain; infected, sour, riddled with dust, grit, and grime. From the ground rose the aroma of waste, death, and other things he had never experienced before. Something stank akin to the hot tang of lava. He could not name all the myriad scents within the miasma. There was simply too much, too little known.

His mouth tasted sour too, like the air, but metallic. Foul with old blood.

He had no strength to spit, that screaming pain from his ear unrelenting and locking his jaw anyway. He simply opened his lips a little, just a crack, and allowed his tainted saliva to dribble out. Even that action was enough to tire him. His throat was dry and he needed to cough, relieve a tickle lodged there, but the reflex was beyond him.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the breaths entering and leaving his lungs through his open mouth. At least he could breathe here, he thought, despite the rancid taste clinging insidiously to his tongue. Some of the places he had passed through on his tumbling journey had barely been capable of supporting him, full of burning ash and noxious smells.

With those thoughts vivid in his memories, he focused on the now rhythmic movement of damp air in his chest. He could not understand the marsh-gas-like light, nor the searing agony in his burning ear, or the unceasing rain, but he could gratefully concentrate on his rasping breath and allow himself to be lulled him back to temporary oblivion.

-

Cloud, heavy and white, tumbling, sky, ground, sky, ground, sky. Bright color, the sun, pulsing gold, yellow, red. Green forests, bare stalks, wide still seas, and rushing waves. Arid deserts and endless undulating hills and prairie. Each image; a flash, too fast to grab hold of, to understand, to take in and comprehend. His motion, uncontrolled, terrifying, unsteady, too fast.

Castiel awoke with a start and a gasp, the sudden motion arresting him, choking him in the never ending gray darkness. Rain, cold and heavy, hitting him, then pain. Blankness.

-

He woke once again, the rain heavier, colder. He could feel grit clinging to his skin, flung up by the pounding raindrops, splashing his face, sticking to his beard and eyelashes, and turning his eyes gummy. It was just another discomfort to add to the list.

A thought crept up on him as he stared vacantly into the never ending gray—a moment of clarity as he lay there undisturbed. The thought made his thirst-cracked and bloody lips curve up into a smile. A blissful, terrifying, exhilarating thought.

_He was free._

He had made it.

Suddenly, he wanted to celebrate the pain burning in his ear. He wanted to aggravate it, wanted to really _feel_ it, to make sure it was there, to make sure it was real.

It meant he was free.

His head still roiled and span, despite his unmoving and prone position on the hard, filth strewn surface beneath him. He needed to move. He felt the need with a jolt of urgency to his gut. He needed to get up and warn someone. He needed to share what he knew—but he couldn’t. He was _so_ tired.

Another errant thought sent a lightning fast bolt of fear through him, lighting up his various injuries and smashing through his liquid feeling brain, sparking every hurt he had sustained in his flight and fall.

What if they sent someone to recapture him?

Castiel needed to get to safety, he needed to hide. Beyond anything, his health, even his life, he needed to be free, he didn't want to be a prisoner any longer. He wasn't even certain that saving a life, a hundred lives was worth going back to his own personal hell for.

A sob rose up from deep within his chest, painful and aching, racking his sore body. He tried to calm himself, sucking in long slow breaths of the tainted air. He was too broken, too damaged to cry, to lose control, to give in to the pain and the fear. If he gave in, he would never come back to himself. He would be lost. Utterly. He had to be strong.

He reminded himself that, in this place, he was well hidden, or so he believed. He needed to be careful, yes, but, so long as he stayed in control he could do what he needed to do.

He had to get up. He had to move, hide. He was hidden in only one respect. Bare to the night, injured, cold and bleeding, he needed to find shelter. He needed safety, he needed to heal—before he could save the world.

He sighed and closed his eyes once more.

Just one more rest, another few moments, and he would move. He would get up and would protect himself so that he could protect this planet.

-

Dean groaned. Disapproval of everything—daylight, wakefulness, life in general—was voiced in the guttural groan, muffled by his pillow. He rolled over underneath his lumpy and worn blankets, grumbling out a “Noooo,” and thinking that it was far too early to be awake, no matter what the actual time was. His eyes were determinedly screwed shut as he refused to look at the cruel glowing wall clock across the room. He _knew_ it was too early, no matter what it had to tell him.

His head ached dully, a flat pain that filled every corner of his brain, reminding him that he hadn't stumbled through his front door until past nine in the morning. He really hadn't drunk all that much, and his headache was probably more exhaustion than the rough beer he’d been drinking.

He smiled grimly, glad he’d called it quits when he did. He’d left Benny, his partner and best friend, in the bar that morning and staggered out into the wet, grey day. Benny had been pouring a fresh drink for himself with some giggling demon perched on his lap. Dean didn’t envy him his hangover this afternoon—well, maybe a little, he thought, shivering a little in his empty bed.

With a dry cough and a curse he finally levered himself up to a sitting position and twisted in his nest of variously patterned throws, covers and blankets, to finally glare at the time. Two thirty in the afternoon.

Not that it was much lighter than it had been at the end of his shift at four in the morning, or when he’d left the bar at eight. As usual, the sky was falling, the slashing rain pouring from the low, dark cloud cover, pummelling the floor-to-ceiling glass wall at the side and end of his decrepit, ancient apartment. The sky was about as bright as it ever managed to get; a sort of miserable half light. On the rare occasions when the sky didn’t drop its load, it almost seemed like the daylight that was described in books and on the secondnet. People, in Dean's opinion, dressed like douches, wearing darkened glasses, and stood with their hands shielding their eyes, watching the light gray cloud scudding across the dry sky. Although, he grudgingly admitted, he’d stared too, squinting in the unaccustomed brightness.

Things were better than they used to be, he allowed. He couldn't remember a single day when it did _not_ rain until he was fourteen years old. The harvest had even been acceptable in the past few years, the grinning demon at the fish market had told him. Nothing had actually been washed away, not enough rot to worry about, _almost green,_ rather than the unappealing yellow things usually grew. Yet, still, no one had ever seen the sun.

He scowled once more at the accursed wall clock and dropped back into the heap of always-damp blankets, throwing one over his head to block out the sight of the miserable, rain soaked, gray building approximately eight feet from his window and making up the entirety of the view.

“Two-fucking-thirty,” he groaned into the ugly yellow and pink knitted thing covering his face. He had just over four and a half hours to kill before he needed to be at work. Again.

“Fucking two-thirty.”

He rolled over, and over again, dragging the whole mess of covers with him and landing with a grunt on the floor. The monstrosity that covered his head finally flopped forward, allowing him a breath of the apartment’s fresher air once more; dank, damp and cold.

His studio apartment didn't boast much storage. He didn’t need to move much to drag clean underwear from a drawer beneath the bed. He flopped his head back on the now bare mattress to stare at his work clothes where they lay on the two-seater couch shoved against the cracked glass of his far wall. He knew how filthy they were, but decided that he could probably get away with another night before he had to wash them.

He made a little pleading noise in the back of his throat as he rolled his head back around to look at the bare wall in front of him, disgusted at himself. With a grunt and a snarl, he decided he really couldn't pretend he was still asleep just because he was wrapped in his blankets, however much more his bed appealed to him; work would be the same as ever, so would his morning routine, as would his breakfast...

He was awake, and he needed to shower—because a constant downpour outside your window just wasn't quite the same. And he was hungry, he suddenly realized, tipping the scale in favor of getting up.

Sirens screamed in the distance, the noise filtering through the open window in the corner of his apartment. By now, though, he found himself immune to the sirens, a background noise, dampened by the rain in any case. They were almost soothing.

He pushed himself to his feet, stumbling a little as the pile of blankets tangled themselves around him. Cursing, he kicked them across the room before sighing and throwing them back on the bed, his knees popping as he bent to grab them from the floor.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered and retrieved his clean boxer shorts from the blankets he’d put back on the bed. Grinding his teeth, he stamped into his shower room, slamming the door behind him. He argued with the shower dials as usual, then carefully avoided the mold he couldn’t seem to get rid of. With his eyes closed, he finally slumped under the warm water until his forehead rested on the cool tiles.

The old feeling of inadequacy crept up on him as he stood under the pathetic dribble of water, feeling empty. With a sneer he realized the mold between the tiles had probably achieved more in its lifetime than he had.

Once his shoulders had relaxed sufficiently, he bent and picked up the soap and the wash cloth, grunting a protest as his spine popped. He gave himself a perfunctory clean, glaring slightly at his flaccid and uninterested cock. With another sigh and an eyeroll, he decided to blame _that_ on the late hours and dehydration.

He wriggled and thumped the dial as, like every morning, the water turned ice cold before finally dissipating into a dribble, then a drip, then nothing. He wrapped a towel around his waist, shivering and glaring at his reflection, longing for Bobby’s much nicer, cleaner, hotter bathroom. He cursed the city he lived in, the damn wind and the damn cold. It wouldn't be much warmer where Bobby lived, and certainly no drier, but his home didn't have the all-pervading sense of damp and misery that Dean’s awful apartment in the city had. The open window, allowing wind and rain in while he slept every day, didn't help, but—

His Baby was a beauty. She was perfect, and no one could tell him otherwise. But even he had to admit that the forty-nine year old Chevy Impala was considered so old now that, even in his ancient, retrofitted, “classical,” shitty, shoddy apartment, they had managed to install the modern battery hookups, leaving him without the facilities to keep her charged.

Instead, he had to lead a cable from his kitchenette, through that damned open window, around the outside of the building and into his garage, where the correct fitting meant that he could charge her sleek lines while he was out cold.

Dean pulled on his underwear, socks and slightly damp work trousers, not even caring whether they were clean anymore. It hardly mattered. He was just a beat cop, stuck on the night shift. He rounded up drunks and prostitutes, junkies, drug dealers and illegal off-worlders

He had enough time to kill before his shift that he could bury himself in his car for a few hours. She needed a polish, and there was a section of the bio-luminescence that needed mending. It was stupid stuff, but she was his Baby, and he wouldn't have her any other way. He threw on a t-shirt and headed to his garage.

It was six thirty in the evening by the time Dean clicked the last replacement tile into place on the smooth curve of Baby's roof. It was far more hassle than it was worth, but Dean nodded in satisfaction as he stepped back, the neon blue arc unbroken and pulsing warmly in the gloom of the garage. He stretched, popping his shoulders and cracking his neck as he stood on his toes, fingers brushing the steel beams of the ceiling.

It was rare to find a place like his, somewhere with a garage, in the city. He had handed over a huge amount—more money that he had ever intended—for his purchase, causing a disgusted tirade from his father. The man had accused him of wasting his precious wages, before his argument had escalated into a full blown rant about Dean's inability to do his job properly, what a disappointment Dean was.

To Dean, Baby was worth the cash, but he was willing to admit his father had been right about everything else. No one who had been passed over for promotion as many times as he had been could be considered good at their job.

But, Dean thought grimly, there was a reason for that.

He grimaced and tried to clear his thoughts, knowing that thinking about John Winchester never made for a good day, at work or otherwise. He shivered as he opened up the garage door again, letting in the rank stink of rotting city as the filthy rain assaulted him.

He locked the garage door, even though he would be returning to it in an hour to drive to the precinct. He may have a garage and live in a 'classical' building, but what that really meant was that he lived in a tiny studio, in an ancient and dilapidated pre-war dump of an office block on the wrong side of town. You didn't leave anything unlocked.

As he jogged around the corner, head ducked against the rain, he wondered if there was really a right side of town anymore. Maybe there had been, once, long before his parents had moved to the city thirty-eight years previously. They had been excited about their future back then, just after they had gotten married, with John’s bright prospects at the Complex. That excitement hadn't lasted long—

He scowled and pushed his thoughts away once more as he forced his key into the lock of the building's front door and barged his shoulder against the warped door to enter. How glass and steel could be warped, Dean didn't know, but it had been sticking since before he had moved in. If you squinted it could be seen as a quirk of an old building, a ‘feature’, but was probably just ancient bomb damage that had never been replaced or repaired. It just pissed Dean off.

He took the metal stairs three at a time to the second floor and hung a left at the top, and walked to the door at the end of the corridor. He fumbled with his keys again, jiggling one in the lock to unstick the mechanism and sighed in irritation as it stuck a moment. “Stupid fucki- Ah hah!” he mumbled as the tumblers caught and gave him access. He had to admit, as he closed the door behind himself, that his home wasn't all that bad. It was mostly whole, and someone did maintenance from time to time. It was full of people like himself who earned only just enough, mostly single, some couples. No kids.

The apartments were too small for that. Besides, the moment a human child was confirmed to be on the way, they were offered a cheap re-housing loan by the Council.

They were always accepted, the families moving somewhere cleaner and safer. The suburbs, closer to the farms, fresher food, lower pollution, more light.

Under population was still a huge problem. After the war there was an enormous population collapse, caused by the destruction and the fallout afterwards. The Councils were trying to fix it now, now that mass crop failures were beginning to be a thing of the past. The Government wanted new, healthy, young people groomed to join the Complex, too.

That was where Sam was, inside the Complex, the Government. Dean snorted at the thought of the Winchester brothers’ joint failure. Sam might be a bright young thing with a stable job inside the Complex, but he certainly wasn't doing the kind of job they wanted filled. He was there on sufferance.

Dean stamped to the fridge, pulling off his rain-damp t-shirt and flinging it onto the sofa as he went. He dragged dumplings and root vegetables from the fridge, and threw them in a pan, sighing as it began to heat on the ancient rusting stove. He wondered if he could charm old Mrs. P'all down the corridor into making him another stew. He had eaten for a week from the last one, the remains now heating in his pan, and she was a much better cook than he was. The angel really was exactly that when it came to cooking, turning their miserable, yellow, and stringy food into filling and tasty meals.

He poured the hot stew into a bowl and walked across his room. He dropped onto the couch, shifting in discomfort until the broken spring no longer stabbed him in the thigh.

He rolled his eyes, sighing. _That's why my overalls aren’t waterproof any more,_ he thought, resolving to find something to pad the seat with.

He stared at the stew, thinking that even with Mrs. P'all's excellent cooking, it was still pretty unappetising and bland. He raised the bowl, drinking the lot down as fast as possible, chewing steadily on the dumplings once the liquid was all gone. He pulled a face, wishing for Bobby’s fresh food, direct from the farm, still nothing like the food in old recipe books he’d seen in the Complex’s library once.

With a sigh he dumped his bowl in the sink, letting it join the other dirty bowls and spoons. He turned back to his room; dark and miserable. It was a mess.

Resolved, he pulled on his under shirt and began straightening up the room. Lethargically he made his bed and dumped his dirty clothes in the laundry basket. He pulled on his shirt and waterproof outer jacket as he filled the sink to soak the dishes.

He would strip the bed the next day after he got a decent sleep.

He scoffed at himself, who was he kidding? This day would be just like the last, and the next. He would work, then go drinking with Benny when they finished at four in the morning. He would only go home when Benny started flirting with anyone who got close enough—the dishes would never get done.

Slumping his shoulders, he glared at his newly tidy apartment. He hated being so messy, but found most of the time, he just didn't care enough, couldn’t summon enough energy. Why worry about cleanliness when you would simply make more mess the next day?

He found his hat down the back of the sofa, resting against the cracked glass, and shoved it onto his head, buttoning up his coat. Dean went through his routine, disconnecting the power for the Impala, shutting the window, and slamming the door three times before it stayed shut. He locked it and left, stamping back to his garage, the door of which had acquired a large scratch since he had locked it earlier.

He thumped his fist against the metal of the door in resigned annoyance before opening it up. The area was rife though, and the damage not the first the door had taken. That he hadn’t heard the noise wasn't surprising either. Although the area was largely uninhabited, like much of the city, those people who did live there were generally poor, living from odd job to odd job. Drugs and illicit alcohol were most people's stock in trade and favored pastime.

But, not everyone was bad. Many looked out for one another, like old Mrs. P'all who had been left alone when her son had decided to move back home.

The area was full of the old and the lonely, those left behind and those waiting for loved ones. They were all stuffed into the few buildings that remained upright, watertight and heated. Much of the area was simply rubble.

No Council was rebuilding, not when so much still stood tall and empty.

-

Dean pulled up next to the block that Benny lived in. It looked eerily similar to his own building—glass walls, steel frame. Gaping maws tucked underneath lead to the car lot, spread wide across the whole building. But it was nearly five times the size of Dean’s own. How it had escaped the bombing, he had never worked out. Dean was glad, once more, that his place had an individual garage for his own use. Despite the downside of the shared car lot, Benny’s place was better built, warmer and drier. For those reasons, it housed a huge host of more recent immigrants, lowly workers, and families of off-worlders, with masses of wailing and screaming children running through the corridors and banging on doors as they passed.

Under-population might be a problem, or least it would be in twenty years or so, when the Complex outgrew its current scale and needed more able _humans_ to work behind it's closed doors, but it was only humans they were after. Not that angels and demons didn't work there, but the Government were very particular about who got _those_ jobs. The general populus, whether they had come here looking for a more technologically interesting life, wanting the joys of electricity and fast travel, or liked incessant rain, didn't get a look in at the Complex.

They only allowed such a huge number of off-worlders onto Earth, Sam assured him, because the Government simply didn't care. The Government of the Complex, and the Council of this, the nearest city, were hardly in communication with each other, let alone the Councils of any other city or settlement.

The Complex allowed off-worlders in if they asked, because they weren’t the ones who had to deal with them on Earth.

If a human, on the other hand, wanted to travel through the Bridge, they had to jump through hoops—only colonists or Complex employees got to step in either direction; Red or Blue.

Grumbling he tapped the horn twice in an attempt to hurry Benny up.

The vamp was late so often that Dean and his car were beginning to be recognized. His Baby had already been keyed once while he had been sitting inside of her waiting for Benny's hungover ass to pour itself down the stairs and over to Dean for his ride to work.

“Mornin' brother!” Benny finally greeted, a broad smile showing all of his extremely sharp teeth, and proving to Dean that it wasn't the alcohol keeping his friend late, but a woman. He only smiled like that when he got laid.

“Finally. Don't tell me it was that ravbaa from last night? The one using you as a jungle gym?”

Benny grinned, offsetting his next words. “Why? You gotta thing about demons and angels hookin up?”

Dean scoffed. “Of course I fuckin' don't. Just thought you had a bit more class, man.”

Benny grunted out a laugh and shrugged. “Class is for those lookin' for a life partner, not a quick 'n dirty fuck, my friend.” He grinned over at Dean again, clearly teasing. Dean grumbled, knowing Benny had seen him strike out with the pako-bul behind the bar. She had been beautiful. Ethereal white skin and the curved horns sweeping back from her forehead had almost met the sharp points of her white wings, pinned neatly to her back.

She had laughed in Dean's face when he'd tried a line on her.

“There there. Maybe next time honey,” Benny said with a wink and a pat to his shoulder. The vamp hopped out of the car as Dean pulled up in the precinct parking lot, slamming the door behind him.

Dean scowled and trudged into the building after his far-too-upbeat partner. Another eight hours of cold and rain, of drug dealers and prostitutes. Another eight hours with only an insufferable vampire and his gleeful bragging to keep him company.

Dean sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Fuck my life.”

-

“It's Losechester and the alcoholic vamp!” leered Walt, the fat and mean duty officer, as soon as Dean and Benny entered their place of work. “It's just great having you two drag yourselves in every night, y’know? It's good for morale, and for the public to know that there's filth out there that's even lower on the food chain than they are!” he cackled. “One pathetic human and an old soak of a demon,” he sneered, shaking his head.

The heavy doors swung shut behind them and blocked out the noise of the rain. LED lamps, glowing too brightly against the evening blackness they'd just come from, picked out the revolting desk sergeant’s sallow skin and mangy beard.

Dean bit his tongue and rolled his eyes. After years of Dean's refused promotions and Benny's known inclinations, they’d run out of counter arguments and pithy replies. They had given up swinging their fists after the second suspension without pay.

Dean couldn't even yell at the man for calling Benny a vamp. And not least because he called him that too. _Everyone_ called vamiir vampires. Their mouth full of pointed teeth and diet of animal's blood didn't help matters. Experts even believed that hundreds of years ago, long before the war that caused the Bridge to be brought into existence, vamiir may have accidentally fallen through the gaps between worlds, causing the legends that created the vampires, after whom they now took their nicknames. Benny couldn't really give a shit in any case. Walt had all but pissed himself when he'd caught Benny tucking into his evening meal once. His mouth had been smothered with the blood of the freshly killed rat, still steaming in his hands as he’d grinned up at Walt's horrified face. All the nicknames in the world were worth the human's reaction, Benny had repeatedly told Dean.

“Fuck, how pathetic can you get?” Walt continued, sneering at Dean. “No wonder he can't get promoted! Fucking wuss.”

Walt's sniggered words followed him down the poorly lit corridor and to the locker room. The sergeant's parting words didn't even sting Dean, he was so used to hearing them. Even his boss didn't hold back his disdain for him. He was a joke. The lowest of the low.

Wrinkling their noses against the stench of B.O, feet and damp, he and Benny unlocked their weapons cages. Dean pulled out his gun, the regulation smoke bombs, taser and EMP device, inserting them carefully into each holster on the heavy belt he wore. The cuffs, gag, and radio fed ear plugs went in the pouches at his and Benny’s waists. Their hats were already lined with a wafer thin layer of lead chainmail in the lining, sufficient to block out most mental attacks.

“Go see the boss?” Benny asked when they were both loaded down with their protective gear and weaponry. Dean shrugged and nodded. They had standing orders, but they had to check in with their sergeant, Gordon Walker, before they hit the streets. Walker was human. Or, at least, he wasn't on the off-worlders' database, a requirement for angels and demons arriving on Earth.

There were doubts over their sergeant though. He was ruthless and cruel and many had him down as a demon. Which, understandably, men like Benny took offence to. First degree demons, the vamiir, like Benny, were as good, bad and indifferent as humans. It was the same across all the species, found on all the planets the Bridge had given humans safe access to.

All forty Accord planets had a range of assholes and well—“angels.”

In fact, the arrest record was slightly higher for angels, but human law breakers superseded them all.

Gordon didn't even look up from his paperwork when they walked through the door of his office. “Streets,” was his one word, barked order. They rolled their eyes and filed back out, carefully ignoring the half empty bottle on the man’s desk.

They had a set patrol, and Dean, slipping into the driver’s seat of the police cruiser, aimed in the direction of one of the handful of locations they covered on rotation. Between Benny and him and four other teams, they covered the roughest parts of the city.

Every night was the same; bringing in the odd sex worker or kid peddling drugs on street corners, breaking up occasional fights. The routine was dull, mind numbing, the rain a constant drum beat in the background. The same faces, the same streets, the same conversations.

After hours of quiet walking, barely a soul to be seen on the streets, both he and Benny were cold, wet and hungry.

“Looks like it's a quiet one tonight,” Benny murmured as they rounded another empty corner, their boots six inches deep in the puddle collecting around an ancient blocked drain.

“Looks that way,” Dean grunted in return, wondering idly how long ago the drain had last worked. The metal felt pitted under his heavy boot sole.

“Come on, let’s go get somethin' to eat,” Benny said cheerfully, dragging Dean’s attention from the city’s past. His lips twitched in a smile. Benny rarely thought of anything but food, drink and sex. It was one of the reasons they got on so well. The demon was simple, his needs few. He was charismatic, open and honest, and Dean couldn’t ask for a more loyal friend.

In companionable silence they walked slowly in the direction of the nearest street food stall, avoiding the deeper potholes by rote.

Schtleff ran the cart, a tiny thing stuffed with vats of hot stew standing over small burners. Freshly killed rats or squirrels hung from hooks and mugs of blood sat in ice, among other things. The smell was visceral, a mix of the tang of iron and the homely smell of gravy. Benny, like many demons and angels, could eat human food, but he needed fresh blood to survive. Schtleff catered to every species he could.

“Hey Jeff,” Dean nodded in greeting to the huge and disgusting cook.

For someone who stood seven feet tall with a vertical mouth that slit his bulbous body in two from his nose to his navel, he was remarkably pleasant. He was also a mean chef. Dean respected the man. He ran one of the best stands, always had something edible and hot. He even managed to get hold of chicken or rabbit on occasion.

“Fuck you, Winchester!” the demon laughed, his maw opening wide around his chuckle. “One day you'll get my name right.” Schtleff's tongue swiped over his vertical lips quickly, in what Dean recognized now, as the ch'u'ch's version of a smile.

“Good to see you too, man,” Dean smiled, fully intending _never_ to get the man’s name right. He nodded hungrily when Schtleff pointed at the steaming vat of savoury stew, trusting him to give him the best on offer. Dean took the tin mug with thanks and huddled close to the burner under the many-times patched awning covering the stall.

“Got some squirrel blood today, Lafitte,” the repulsive cook directed at Benny, who pulled a face, but nodded greedily anyway, holding his hands out.

“I don't know why you humans gotta insist on all your animals bein' so cute. I can hardly stomach it man,” Benny complained in mock distress as he eyed the dangling rodents. Schtleff just chuckled again, handing over the mug. Dean passed the man some coins, heavy and clanking as the demon dropped them in the till that he guarded more closely than he did the recipe to his stroganoff.

They savoured their food, passing the odd comment between themselves and the chef, staring out at the lonely, wasted city in the rain.

-

Four in the morning and Dean placed his gun carefully in his locker. The night had been quiet. They’d only pulled in a few hookers and a couple of kids snorting something illicit down an alley. The long hours had been passed just showing their presence, getting to know the locals and talking. Always talking. It was the only way to know if something was really happening. Nothin' was—same old, same fucking old.

Dean heaved a deep sigh.

“Beers tonight?” Benny asked hopefully, eyeing his companion with a slight frown on his face.

“Do you know what, buddy? I'm gonna give it a miss tonight. I'm just—fucking done, you know?”

Benny frowned harder, his gaze calculating as he leaned his bulky body against the cage-like lockers. “What's up, brother?” he asked, gentle concern in his voice.

Dean pulled a face and shook his head, not sure how to answer. “I dunno,” he shrugged. “Just feelin' it, I guess. Nothing changes. Sleep, eat, shit, work, drink, fuck, sleep, repeat.” He chewed his lip, unable to look up and meet his friend's intense gaze. Dean never spoke like this, no matter his feelings, and he knew Benny would be worried. But he couldn’t explain it any other way. His life just felt like one long nothingness on endless repeat.

He felt the other man's meaty paw land on his shoulder and squeeze gently; a reassuring weight. “You know you ain’t never gonna get that promotion, right?” Benny's voice was calm and steady, soft and comforting. “You ain't an ass. Not like Walt or Roy. Gordon's the biggest bag of dicks of 'em all. That's why they got the top spots. They call you a soft touch 'cos you _are,_ brother, and that ain't a bad thing.”

Benny's hand left his shoulder and the built man straightened, standing tall. “Look at me, Dean.”

Dean caught his gaze, frowning at his friend as the vamp sucked in a deep breath. He didn’t want to hear what Benny had to say, he wanted to look away, but despite his reputation for boozing and womanizing, he was insightful and compassionate. Dean could trust him.  “You want out? I'll help ya. But I ain't gonna help you turn yourself into an asshole to get a better paid job in this dump.” Benny shrugged expressively, a derisive turn to his lip. “Back home the cops help folk. Here they beat 'em up as soon as look at 'em.” He huffed out a sigh, keeping Dean's gaze trained on him. “I'm proud we're only third class cops, brother. If I could afford it, I'd go home in a heartbeat, help folks who need helping redwards, but I'm stuck here, helpin' where I can.”

Dean looked down, unable to keep Benny's gaze any longer. “Dean, you ain't happy pounding the streets here day after day, I'll help you move, or change things up if you want, but I won’t help you get a promotion. You’re too good for that, brother.”

Benny's voice, low and heartfelt, brought an unexpected lump to Dean's throat. He simply nodded, both in acceptance and in thanks, Benny's unexpected words striking a painful chord.

It was good to know that Benny had his back, but Dean hadn't even known how he had felt about it—his life, himself. How had Benny worked it out?

“I, er, I need to think some shit through,” he stated, keeping his eyes glued to the scuffed floor beneath his boots.

“Sure thing,” Benny agreed easily, lightly slapping Dean's back. “See ya tomorrow.”

He nodded and watched Benny stroll from the locker room to the catcalls of the girls and guys in the cells that they had taken in earlier that night.

Dean briefly leaned his forehead against the metal wire of the locker, wondering what the fuck was going on in his own head. This was far from the first time he'd felt the monotony of his life, the pointlessness, but it was the first time he'd ever thought about doing anything other that what he was doing now. Maybe he was finally stepping out from his Dad's shadow, like Sammy had said he needed to the last time they had spoken _—argued_. He shrugged and pulled himself upright, straight backed and sure of himself, at least on the outside, ready to face the leering hookers and disdainful desk clerks.

“Fuck it,” he whispered to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean pulled the door shut behind him as he slid into the driver’s seat of the Impala. He glared out of the windshield at the ugly squat building he had just left. The precinct, like almost every other building in the city, was old. It had escaped the bombing during the war, unlike the piles of radioactive rubble that covered the ground of most other major cities across the country—the Earth.

He stared at his place of work, glowing lurid yellow in the lamp-lit rain. It remained imposing simply because of the number of officers, holding onto those they were bringing in with a firm hand—a weapon held to their neck.

Benny was right, he shouldn’t be a police officer. It did not suit him.

He would cajole, and persuade, and happily use non-lethal force, but he would never maim or kill just because he could. He would never be promoted above third class.

He sighed, knowing that he didn’t even want the promotion, not really. He wanted his life to mean something, he wanted the satisfaction of making a difference. His life, as it was now, was empty. Promotion would keep him busier, give him more responsibility, the chance to help more people—

But Dean had no desire to brutalize his way to the top, and that was the only method there was.

Dean had never chosen that path, even when it would have meant his father’s acceptance; approval. He had never lived up to John’s expectations, not since the moment he’d realized that Dean would never hurt someone, purely because they weren’t human. Not since the moment he’d noticed that Dean thought of demons and angels as people.

Dean slammed his fists against the steering wheel in frustration.

He had joined the force to help, _and_ to get John’s approval. To be able to hunt down the demons that had killed his mother. But now, he wasn’t sure he’d ever _really_ helped anyone. John was dead, and Dean had never found a trace of the demons that had killed his mom.

All he’d discovered was that demons weren’t evil, angels weren't good. It had simply been bad _people_ that had destroyed his family. And they were long gone.

He had to come to terms with the fact that he would not only never get his father’s approval, but that he didn’t actually want it.

He started up Baby with a scowl, feeling angry and lost.

It hadn’t been until he had been waiting for Sam to leave his interview in the Protection & Rights department, that he had stumbled across a book in the Complex’s library on twentieth, and twenty first century history. He had laughed openly at the concepts of homophobia and racism, until he’d remembered some of his earliest memories. John ensuring they rarely met a demon or an angel, never saying a good word about them, listening intently as the Charter thumping extremists ranted about human’s rights. Humans hating humans for their sexual preferences or skin color was a thing of the past. But instead of racism, it was speciesism, and John had been a terrible offender.

Dean drove down empty streets, veering across rain washed roads, avoiding huge piles of refuse. He scowled at them, and wondered why demons and angels ever tried to travel to Earth.

He lived in one of the only large cities that wasn't razed to the ground during the war, and yet everywhere was degradation and filth. The Government was well known for focusing almost entirely on the Complex and The Doppler Bridge that sat within its circular limits. The local Councils, even the one based in the city closest to the Complex, were only just able to keep up. Immigrants, humans, failed harvests, poor health, lack of industry, no money, little infrastructure, not enough skilled people and poor education. What was the appeal?

On either side of the road, piled on the sidewalks were veritable mountains of refuse. The road was more pot-hole than smooth tarmac, with deep puddles that never dried out. Half the street lamps were broken, either willfully or just from old age, the LEDs waning and petering out one at a time. A dead cat was being slowly washed down the gutter with small piles of unidentifiable litter, and probably, Dean thought with a disgusted wince, literal shit. The drains no longer did their job in most areas of the city.

Dean cursed under his breath as his wheels dipped into another pot-hole he couldn’t see under the reflective surface of the water covering the road. He grumbled, thinking that he should have taken the main route. With the rain a little lighter, the back roads knocked ten minutes off his journey. He wanted to get home, washed and dry, warm. He wanted to sleep. The poorer quality roads, even considering what they were doing to his suspension, were worth it for a whole eight hours of sleep.

He swore, long and loud, when the Impala’s wheels dipped into another pot-hole and refused to move forward. He hit the gas, knowing it would do no good, and watched with malicious pleasure as a plume of water was thrown up.

The rain hit him the moment he stepped from the car in a sheet of freezing misery.

He walked to the rear of the car, grateful for his mostly waterproof uniform, and kicked up the water from the huge pot-hole his back tire had fallen into in irritation. It was just lucky the front had avoided the hole. He opened the trunk and retrieved the board he kept for those exact situations, and wedged it under the tire.

Dean walked back to the driver side and half sat, nudging the gas with his toes. The back wheel gripped the rubber covered board and sent the car from the puddle, aquaplaning in a wave of filthy water before he regained control and brought her to a standstill, all four tires on solid ground.

He splashed through the standing water again to grab the board from the hole. His toe caught on the edge of another rut, sending him shoulder first into the trunk of Baby. With a groan he slumped back against her slick side. Rolling his head to the sky in frustration, he bit off the curses that were on the tip of his tongue. Gripping the board, he turned back to the trunk, his eyes landing on a rotten side alley as he rolled his aching shoulder. On the ground, suddenly visible between sheets of the increasingly heavy rain, lit by the weak streetlamp above his own head, was something...unusual.

Dean frowned. There was a shape; too smooth for the general crap that littered the alleys between crumbling buildings. It seemed to be glowing, pink-orange in the dying white light.

It almost looked like skin.

In the trunk of his car Dean kept hidden an illicit firearm. He lived in a rough neighbourhood, drove a beautiful car, and took more risks with his safety than was ideal, had a lawyer for a brother and a dead police captain for a father. He reckoned a gun was something he could probably get away with if the situation called for it.

He inched backward, keeping an eye on what he was fairly sure was a body, hidden by the obscuring rain and dull lamp light. It didn't move once, but from the distance, and the pounding rain, Dean couldn't tell anything more about the shape. He dropped the board inside the trunk once he had it open, wiping water from his face, and rummaged for the gun, kept hidden under the spare tire.

He checked it was loaded and quietly closed the trunk before scanning his surroundings. All was quiet. It could be a trap, but it seemed a little elaborate if it was. A little-used back road between the police precinct and his rough part of town. No one would know he would be using the road that morning. Nonetheless, he approached the mouth of the alley slowly, carefully, ears pricked for any noise out of the ordinary, any foot falls, the cocking of a gun, anything.

Taking small steps, avoiding sloshing too much water up around his boots, he crept toward the filthy alley. He kept his eyes fixed on the object on the ground.

He paused, breath held, waiting for movement, for someone to reveal themselves, for an attacker to announce their bait successful.

All was quiet.

Dean gasped when the rain parted once again, finally showing him flesh. Acres and acres of naked, bleeding flesh.

Dean did not rush in. It could still be a trap. He had heard of stranger things.

Another ten careful paces and he was standing above the body.

He didn’t wait any longer then. Dean dropped to his knees. The man was pale, blood spread in a large arc from his body, staining the cracked asphalt bright red. If he were alive, he wouldn’t last much longer. He pressed his fingers to the man’s scruffy neck, just where his dark hair was slicked down over his skull and face, stuck to his pale skin.

The man was curled up, one arm thrown out, the other trapped under his body. He was too thin, covered in goosebumps.

Dean bit his lip, repositioning his fingers—he sighed in relief as he found a pulse, strong but erratic.

The man was injured, all over. His ear was a bloody, pulpy mess, the cartilage raw and mutilated, the shell torn right through. He was covered in grazes and bruises. And—he was still unmoving. Dean couldn’t even see the rise and fall of his breath.

He wasn’t even shivering.

Dean was certain that the goosebumps were a good sign, but he should be shivering—lying on the cold ground in a never-ending rain storm. He was too still, too pale, too close to death.

Near frantic, Dean got back up and jogged along the alley a little, looking for anything that belonged to the man; clothing, identification, anything. When he only saw the refuse gathering in heaps along the ancient road, he hurriedly turned back to the man—and instantly stumbled to a halt.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath.

Dean threw himself forward once again. His view from behind had shown him what his approach from the front had not. The man's ass cheeks were lacerated, raw and bloody. Thick white come still clung to his skin, mixing with the blood despite the rain, and smeared from his ass down his thighs, creating a puddle on the asphalt.

Dean stopped thinking. He only acted.

Dropping to his knees in front of the unconscious man again, Dean’s first thought was that he had to be a prostitute, raped and robbed and left to die in the street. He wouldn't be the first, or the last, either— After that, Dean’s thoughts were simply about getting the man to safety.

He shrugged his jacket from his shoulders and clamped it under his arm as he gently lifted the man’s head from the pavement. He froze when a groan escaped the naked man, and Dean let out a breath that he hadn't known he had been holding. The man wasn't past saving if he could groan in pain. The man's eyelids flickered, but didn't open.

“Come on buddy,” Dean whispered, wrapping his hand around the unconscious man’s upper arm and pulling him gently from the floor, his other hand supporting his head, like a newborn baby.

He lifted him into a seated position and shifted to support him by the shoulder—the man was as light as a feather. As he moved, Dean regretted his action immediately, realizing the mistake he had made. The man’s head was injured; a huge bloody mass of skin extending from his hairline to his prominent cheek bone.

He bit his lip, wondering if he should move him further. The man had probably run from his attackers and fallen. But if he had, he’d fallen hard. Hard enough to get gravel in the wound, a second matching one marring his shoulder.

“Shit.”

Supporting the man from his neck, he maneuvered his jacket over his shoulders, making him groan again. His lips moved, trying to speak, but no sound came. His eyes flickered and a deep frown began to cut his features, but Dean was only encouraged. He already looked more alive than he had moments ago. Dean got his feet under himself and pushed upright, pulling the mostly unconscious man with him. He had to get him out of the rain. He spared a thought to Baby’s upholstery, and sent her an apology in advance.

“Up we get, man,” he grunted, flicking his soaked hair from his eyes, blinking away the rain that ran in rivulets down his face.

The man flinched, whether from Dean's manhandling, the new warmth of the jacket, or simply the amount of pain he must have been in, Dean couldn't tell. But Dean sighed in relief when his eyes flickered open briefly, a flash of blue visible, before he closed them again, mumbling too quietly for Dean to hear.

“Come on, let's get you in the car. It's dry in there. Warm,” he babbled, hoping that his voice would help to ground the man, to rouse him. His head lolled on his shoulders though, his eyes opening, unseeing as he mumbled inaudibly again.

“Just one step, okay?” Dean muttered, pacing forward himself and hoisting the man with him, supporting him under the armpits.

“That's it, there ya go,” he said encouragingly as the man's leg stuck out on reflex as Dean's movement pulled him off balance. “Come on, just another few steps.” The man's head rolled again, a little more controlled, and his just-parted eyes rested on Dean's face. “Hey there,” he smiled tentatively, voice just loud enough to hear as he took another step, lifting the man's leaden body another foot forward.

This time the man made an effort; shifting his own weight the tiniest amount, finally more help than hindrance. He pulled in a rasping breath, eyes blinking, a little more aware. Dean could see the blood seeping down the his neck, though, staining his jacket. Their movement must have got his heart pumping; sending blood to his head. And his raw, open ear.

“Got a name?” he grunted, as he pulled them both forward again, the man still mostly hanging off him, fingers weakly plucking at his neck. The man's eyes rolled, looking around before settling on Dean's face, a little more focussed. He didn't seem to understand, his face blank, but nevertheless he drew in another rattling breath.

He hissed out a string of garbled words, too quietly for Dean to catch, but the man's blue eyes and darkly bearded face were imploring, desperate.

“I'm sorry,” Dean huffed, beginning to find it hard to catch his breath as he supported a man, however skinny, who was around the same height as himself. “I can't hear—” the man dropped his eyes, his head lolling forward again, as he continued to gasp out pained little words, thick and accented.

With a worried twist in his chest, Dean finally realized that it wasn't even English that he was struggling to communicate.

Dean leaned in a little further, hoisting the man higher in his grip, adjusting his thinking to the native tongue. Since the Bridge had first been controlled, around fifty years after its creation, a common language had been created. It was developed quickly, after the first scientists had stepped within the Bridge and been faced with two directions; a maelstrom of red one way and blue the other. They had stepped redwards, and been met with the vamiir.

The vamp's version of America, teetering on the edge of an industrial revolution, had never been settled entirely by the English, Spanish, Dutch— The incoming nations had melded and merged with their native inhabitants and created a mashed tongue that represented most of the countries on their globe.

Most of the Accord planets had a version of a Native American dialect as the primary language where the Bridge was located; in the centre of the American continent. So the pidgin native had become the lingua franca.

Dean frowned, listening intently to the man's garbled and muttered words, but he couldn't make out anything he recognized. The man was human; demons and angels were pretty hard to miss, but he wasn't speaking a language Dean recognized. He would have shrugged if he hadn't been carrying the man. The man must be from another country on Earth—something amazingly rare in these times.

He began mumbling in the Native in anycase, hoping that the man would recognize at least a few words of the universal language. Even if he hadn't been in America long, you could hardly get by without it. “Just a few more feet, man. Come on, it's okay. We'll get you warm, I gotcha.”

The man stopped his own mumbling and pulled his head up a little from his shoulders. His pained eyes met Dean's, and for the first time he seemed to actually focus and _see_ Dean.

“They're coming,” he gasped out, a hot puff of rancid breath hitting Dean's cheek before his head flopped and hit Dean's shoulder. He nearly halted his slow walk in surprise at the gruff, deep voice articulating understandable, clear words, but he bit his lip instead, silently urging the man onwards. Something in that voice had a shiver run up his spine.

“They—they're coming. Must—must warn—” the man's muttering broke off, his accent thick. Dean couldn’t place it, and not least because of his pained, tired, broken voice.

But, Dean thought, at least they could communicate.

“It's alright, don't talk, I'm the police, I'm here to help, we'll just get you to the car. All right? Warm, okay?”

The man's face screwed up in confusion, filthy and blood smeared. “Help? Warm?”

Dean nodded, trying to keep his face honest and open, “That's right. Warm. I help.”

“Help, yes,” the man trailed off on the 's' noise, a relieved look on his features before he went limp in Dean's arms. In surprise, Dean nearly let go and dropped him to the puddle covered ground.

“Fuck!” he swore viciously, tightening his grip around the man's ribcage, pulling his body up as high as he could. Dean could feel his bruised shoulder protesting the weight. Biting off a snarl at the pain, he ducked down and swept the man up into a bridal style hold. It wasn't an easy carry, but easier than dragging the injured man the rest of the way.

He stumbled the last few feet to the Impala, the man limp, dead weight in his grip, the rain water collecting in the dip of his belly. Dean rolled his eyes upward, suddenly embarrassed as he truly acknowledged the man's nakedness for the first time.

“Okay, Buddy, we really _do_ need to get you warm, huh?” he asked the unconscious man, focussing his eyes on the gleaming shape of the Impala in the rain.

-

Dean shuddered as he sat in the driver's seat, squirming in discomfort as his wet, cold clothes stuck to his skin and the seat at his back.

Next to him, in the passenger seat, sprawled the unconscious, naked man. His head rested against the dark glass of the window, blood already smeared beneath his forehead. Dean refused to look at the state of the seat under his thighs. It had been too much of a struggle to get him into the seat, let alone trying to get the jacket underneath him too. He sighed. Even he had to accept that the man’s protection and safety were more important than his Baby. Not that he’d admit it out loud.

He’d done his best to keep him wrapped up though, the jacket pulled tight around his torso, keeping his arms tucked inside. Dean winced in sympathy as he reached across him to fasten the seatbelt, his pallid, ice-cold skin too stark in the car's interior light. He turned the heater to full as he started the car, hoping the extra warmth would do something for the man, would help to revive him.

Dean drove back to the main road, careful of the pot-holes, and tried to keep the ride as smooth as possible. He wasn’t sure the man’s head could take being bumped against the cold glass window as the Impala dropped into the road’s pits and troughs.

It took a few long moments at the slow crawl he was driving at, but the interior slowly warmed up. It made the aroma of sex, trash, road grit, and blood more obvious. Dean wrinkled his nose.

It wasn't a long journey back to his apartment once he got back on the more maintained main road, but the man woke up before they were even halfway there. Dean sighed in relief, pleased his efforts had done something to help the vulnerable man.

“They—they're coming.” The man’s deep voice rasped into the quiet of the car. “Need to warn. Can help? You help? Must warn. Must help—Earth. Help. Must— They—“ he trailed off into silence once more, his voice getting fainter and fainter. Something cold sunk into Dean's belly at the man's words.

_Who was coming? Why did a raped prostitute feel like he had to warn someone of something so badly? And warn who?_

In his distraction, the car dropped briefly into another small pot-hole. It bounced back out, but not before the man's head had knocked against the window with a hollow sound, causing him to moan and whine out the words “Sick, spinning.”

He sounded utterly miserable.

Dean, feeling guilty, bit his lip; fearful the guy would throw up all over Baby. He needed to distract him from his concussion—from the symptoms, the spinning, the nausea. “Who—who do you need to warn?” he asked, fear for his car lending his voice more urgency than he’d intended.

The man rolled his head to look at Dean. A sweaty, bloody smear was left in his wake where he still rested against the glass. “Leader? King? Governor?” He sounded unsure, an edge to his voice. Dean bit his lip as he drove the last few streets, feeling the man's eyes on him. Those words worried him, not just the meaning, but the tremor, the desperation.

He pulled up in front of the garage, and with only a quick, tight smile in the man's direction, hopped out of the car. Swiftly, he unlocked his garage before he slid back into the seat and inched Baby forward into the dry. “C—cold,” the man muttered as he shivered violently, weakly tugging the jacket even tighter across his belly. Dean averted his eyes as he looked over to the man quickly, wincing as he realized he'd left the car door open, letting the heat escape.

“Sorry, but we'll have to go out again in a second, okay?” he asked, his voice gruff with sympathy.

The guy pulled a face—fear, surprise—as Dean unclasped his seat belt before he slid back out of the car. He moved around to the passenger side, opening the door slowly,  and crouched down to look up into the bloody man's bearded face. His skin was white and his lips drawn beneath the dirty, ragged facial hair.. “Do you want me to carry you? Or can you walk? There are stairs...” He left the sentence hanging, hoping the man would understand.

He bit back a smile as the man's face screwed up into something offended, affronted. “Walk,” he stated darkly, glowering despite his obvious pain and exhaustion.

Dean did smile then. “Alright, let's get you up.” He offered a hand and politely looked away as the man slowly pushed himself forward on the seat. Dean expected him to take his hand so that he could help pull him to his feet, but the grip never came. As he looked at the ceiling, he heard a grunt, a sob and a chest-deep whine. But the man never took his hand.

“Dude.” He finally looked down and found the man stubbornly gripping the edge of the car door, trying to pull himself up off the seat. The coat had fallen from his shoulders. “For fuck's sake, you stubborn bastard,” he whispered under his breath in English, rolling his eyes.

Slowly he reached over,pulled the jacket back up onto his shoulders, then uncurled the man’s fingers from the door. Letting the man see his every move, Dean wrapped his hands gently around his too-thin forearms, and pulled him upright. He received a furious scowl for his trouble.

He bit down on another smile, beginning to wonder what had got into him. Shrugging off the thought, he began maneuvering them from the garage.

It took too long to get inside his apartment building. The man was reduced to quaking shivers, so bad that his walk was nothing but a stuttering stumble. Once inside the man seemed to quail when he noticed the metal grille staircase to the second floor. His breath was coming in short, hitching gasps and he was sweating under the rain still dotting his brow.

“Shit,” Dean began, realising how difficult getting him up the staircase was going to be. The man’s attention snapped to him, worn out and resigned, but still with that earlier spark boiling in his eyes under a frown. Dean read confusion and curiosity in those eyes, desperation, pleading. resolve. He switched back to Native. “Put your arm over my shoulder, I'll help lift you most of the way, alright?”

The man glowered at him a moment, but then seemed to deflate and, nodding, did as he was told.

They took the stairs slowly, with the man muttering the occasional “Spinning,” and “sick,” as they went, his voice nothing but a miserable moan.

With a sigh of relief from both of them, Dean finally got them into the apartment. He helped the man across the small room and into the singular chair at the small table against the glass wall. He decided against letting him sit on the soft, low sofa. He wasn't sure if he would be able to get him back out again; he would need to in order to help get him clean, fed and into bed so that he could rest properly, warm and comfortable.

It took longer than Dean had anticipated, shuffling across the room and lowering him down, careful not to jar his injuries as he sat. He walked to the bathroom and grabbed the towel from the rack, draping it over the man's head, earning himself another glare as it slid into his bare lap.

“Dry yourself?” he suggested, wondering if the man had the strength. He glared up at Dean for a moment, making him think he hadn't understood, until he shrugged and nodded slowly. With a quaking hand he began rubbing the towel down his uninjured side.

Dean dug out underwear and socks, an old pair of jeans and an oil stained t-shirt he didn’t mind giving away. He looked up to throw them to the man just in time to see him dabbing the dry coarse towel along the insides of his thighs, smearing the cream towel with an obvious mix of bodily fluids.

“Woah!” he said in alarm, raising his full hands in a calming motion, making the man pause, concentration and pain mixed clearly on his face. “I can get you a cloth for that okay? It won't hurt as much if it's damp alright?” The guy frowned, clearly completely perplexed. Dean shrugged and shook his head to himself, figuring the injured man simply didn't understand. He motioned to him to stay where he was, dropping the clothes and turning back to the bathroom. The man inclined his head slowly, watching Dean, clearly biting down on chattering teeth through his curiosity, reminding Dean to turn the heat on. It was thankfully one element of the place that Dean could keep working himself, and did so, even if he often didn't bother heating it just for himself. He sighed, thinking that it probably wouldn't be so damp if he kept it warmed properly.

He flicked on the switch to the heater as he passed through to the bathroom. His knees clicked as he bent to grab the washcloth from the floor of the shower. With a curse he dropped a tiny drop of soap on it, mindful of the man's injuries, and soaked it in hot water. After wringing out what he could he walked back to the man, passing it over with the word “Wash.”

He fetched the clothes he had picked out, grabbing a sweater he hardly wore and didn’t mind sacrificing. He put them on the table next to the man, who looked at them blankly. “Get dressed when you're done okay? You need to get warm, get food in ya, then you can shower okay? Get you clean and warmed through.”

The man looked up at him again, that same bewildered look on his face, before he held the cloth slightly away from his thigh, his foot propped on the edge of the chair, and nodded at the clothes, an open, grateful expression on his face. “Thank you,” he rasped.

Dean just nodded, keeping his gaze averted from the man’s form, bloody and mutilated, and went to make some toast, wishing he had something more substantial to offer him. He looked too thin and wiry, underfed underneath all that scar tissue and the open, bloody welts.

As Dean pulled the butter from the fridge, he looked back over at the man, where he stood fastening the jeans with clumsy fingers around his bony hips. He had a look of wonder on his features as he moved his fingers almost reverently across the coarse fabric, his lips hitching at each button, each seam. Dean looked on, transfixed by the man's soft and heartbreaking smile.

Until, that is, he turned his back to pick up the t-shirt.

“Holy shit!” Dean yelped, as he saw clearly in the bright light of his apartment, the state of the man's back.

The wounds, the blood, the scars, he had expected—but not the bruises.

Spreading across his back, from his shoulder blades, up to his neck and down to his waist, either side of his spine, was black, purple and dark red mottling, staining his skin, visibly growing as he looked.

“Your back!” he exclaimed at the blank, quizzical expression that the man threw over his shoulder.

In answer, he rolled his bruised shoulders, wasted muscles moving under the tormented skin. He grimaced, but grinned, wide and exultant, showing every one of his teeth. His eyes gleamed brightly before he pulled the shirt on over his head, hiding everything from Dean’s sight.

Shaking his head, Dean turned back to the toaster, and in English muttered “You're fuckin' crazy, man,” confusion and admiration mixed in his tone.

With a plate piled with buttered toast, he turned back, finding the man sitting back on the chair, wriggling and wincing, but once again sober faced. He was slowly rubbing his hair with the towel, making it stick up in every direction.

Dean watched with amusement as the man's round eyes tracked the plate as he walked past. “Eat.”

The scrawny man didn't need telling twice. He dropped the towel and picked up a slice, inhaling deeply before taking a huge bite, chewing rapidly with a glazed expression on his face.

Dean huffed a laugh; awe, wonder and bemusement right alongside raging curiosity.

He forcibly turned himself away to search the bathroom for anything that resembled medical supplies. He knew he had bandages of some kind at least. “Oh,” he threw over his shoulder as he walked away, “what's your name?”

There was a pause before the man answered and Dean smiled as he heard the gulping noise of his swallowing. “Cas—” he coughed around the food stuck in his throat, but continued, a little stronger than Dean had yet heard him. “Castiel.”

“Nice name,” Dean commented as he kneeled in front of the bathroom cabinet, wondering where it came from. It almost sounded Off-Worlder in origin. He glanced over to the man, to Castiel, who was sitting back in the chair, clearly in discomfort, but holding his belly, the plate empty and a smile on his face.

He stood, the roll of homemade bandages, cloths and rubbing alcohol in his hands. “I'll get you some more food, okay?” he said with a slight laugh in his voice, nodding at the empty plate, “Then you can get washed up properly. I'll do what I can for your injuries—” he shrugged, waving the bandages in the air slightly, “and then you can take the bed alright?”

The change was instantaneous.

Castiel flinched and stood, stumbling back against the chair. His eyes were wild as they flicked between Dean and the bed, fear obvious, his face even paler that it had been, the terror pulling his mouth wide.

“Hey! No— I—” he held up his hands, but before he could even get a real word out, Castiel snarled at him, practically hissing, eyes near closed in terror, anger.

“No!” he all but screamed in Dean’s face before he bolted to the door, moving with surprising speed considering he had been unconscious in an alley just over an hour previously.

Dean was running across the tiny room, dodging the bed before the door had even banged back in the frame behind the terrified man.

By the time he reached the top of the landing, the main door a floor below was banging closed too. Dean couldn't believe how fast he was. He hadn't been able to walk not half an hour ago!

He ran down the steps, desperate to catch up, desperate to explain, to help. He didn't want the injured man to end up back in the cold and the rain, alone, injured, raped, hungry. He wanted to help look after him. He wanted to see that blinding smile again.

“CAS!” he yelled the moment he burst into the alley between his building and the next. “CAS! For fuck’s sake!” he spat, kicking in fury at a puddle. Castiel was nowhere to be seen. Dean couldn't even hear the pounding of his feet above the pounding of the rain.

He spent the next half an hour trawling the streets, calling his name, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man he had clearly terrified.

“You fucking idiot, Dean,” he berated himself as he tiredly climbed the stairs back to his apartment, dispirited, depressed, cold, soaked through and miserable.

He mournfully looked at the empty plate, bloody towel and washcloth, thinking he had failed Castiel before he had really even had a chance to help the vulnerable man.

He flopped on to the bed, face buried in his hands.

“Fuck.”


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel groaned as he stretched his wings for only the third time in his life. He revelled in the sublime pain blooming down his back—and flew.

He landed with a grunt back on Earth, returning from where he had run to, the wind knocked from him, but at least he remained on his feet this time.

When he had fled that man's room and flung himself off the world to one that he knew—that felt familiar—he had landed among cold rocks on the barren wasteland, tearing holes in the leg coverings he had been given as he had fallen to the ground.

Now, back on Earth once more, Castiel felt those coverings, and those for his torso, too, begin to dampen with the rain hitting his sore shoulders and soaking up from the sodden ground. Even so, he shivered in delight at the pleasurable feeling, the pull of the coverings against his skin, the joy of being allowed to hide his body from view for the first time in his life.

Just like when the human had handed him material to dry himself with, and another square of fabric to _clean_ himself with.

He had never been allowed to remove the semen before. Nor the blood.

He sighed as the soft and pleasant memories soured suddenly with the knowledge that the human had been just like the menenth, and every other race he had come across. He had thought, when he had been in the moving thing, that maybe the humans were different, that here, he would be safe.

The man had certainly made him feel as if his body was his own—for the first time. Up until, that was, he had indicated the bed.

Castiel had rarely been put on a bed for sex, but it had happened. He knew what it was for.

He shuddered, grateful once more, despite the pain and the tumult of emotions, that he was free.

He looked around himself, taking in his rain soaked surroundings, grimacing as his dry coverings soaked through in moments, chilling the skin underneath.

On the world he had fled to, where the moon had been big and yellow in the clear sky, Castiel had picked his way carefully over the sharp and pointed gray rocks. He had walked and walked, letting the gentle pull in his gut lead the way to the point he wanted to return to on Earth. He could _feel_ it. He had stared at the sky, where the stars had been drowned out by the brightness of the moon. But he did not need them to navigate, that pull, that _feeling_ was enough. And even if he had needed the stars, like the menenth did, he had never seen them from the Earth. The rain had poured continuously, with cloud covering the sky, coloring all his memories of the place.

And now he had returned to Earth once more; the rain hammering on his spinning head and the nausea rising if he moved too quickly. The food the man had given him had helped him a little, helped his Grace to revive, as had the coverings that would protect him from the lowest temperatures of night and early morning, but the chilled rain still took its toll. He was in another narrow path lined with towering buildings. He had only ever seen trees reaching so high, so precipitously. The menenth's buildings never rose more than twice Castiel's height, built in haste from the materials surrounding them when they arrived from the Bridge. Always arriving, always leaving, always going fire-ways.

He sighed and ducked under the cover of an overhang, gritting his teeth against the pounding in his head, the shiver trailing up his spine, the sharp pain from all his wounds. The throbbing in his hole and wrists and ankles were just background noise, especially in comparison to the screaming agony still sounding from his ear.

His feet squelched slightly as he stepped on the drier part of the smooth gray ground, his stolen foot coverings soaked through.

His ear burned hot, despite how cold he was once again. He didn't dare touch the area. What was left of his flesh was beyond tender, and he didn't want to know the extent of the damage he had done. But, it had been the only way to escape. Tearing the eyelet from his own cartilage provided him with freedom. The ragged remains of his ear would just have to stand testament to his past, he would wear it as a badge of honor.

Castiel watched the dawn break from his secluded spot. The blackness above gave way slowly to a dark gray. The gloom never lifted, heavy clouds obscured the sky. He already missed blues and greens. But this was better. This was freedom.

He leaned against the wall behind him, a cold and smooth expanse of glass. It was just like the glass in the man’s dwelling, so different from the small glass bottles some worlds produced, beyond anything he could have imagined. With the cold surface behind him, and the chill wind to his front, he finally _felt_ his Grace beginning to heal his body, just by the smallest increments. He felt his blood staunched a little more, the head injury that made his vision spin, dulling and calming even further. But it was slow, nothing like the tales Gabriel had told him.

He grimaced at the hot pain of his ear. That would take much longer to heal, and almost certainly never fully, it would always be a mangled mess. He shrugged and tucked his cold fingers under his armpits, gripping the cloth that swaddled him, warmed him. He smiled at the luxury.

He replayed the previous few hours in his head, as he stared vacantly at the gray wall in front of him. Rain whipped against the surface and wind whistled between the high walls. He had awakened to something hot being pressed to his side, to warmth enveloping his shoulders, but the sensation of the rain still pelting his head, his legs still cold and wet. There had been words, a deep voice, warm and worried sounding, but he hadn't really understood it. It sounded vaguely familiar, but too different. Twisted and wrong.

He remembered talking, and trying to walk, and he remembered vividly when the man switched to talking American, or a garbled version of it, anyway. He remembered trying to warn him, but the rest of his memories were vague until he was seated in the warm moving carriage.

He remembered refusing to be carried to wherever the man had wanted to take him, and he wondered at the ease of his acceptance of _that_. He had just escaped captivity, and he should not have allowed his wounds and his depleted Grace to make him weak of will, to so easily follow a human blindly into his dwelling without demanding answers, without ensuring his safety first.

Castiel scowled at himself, furious. He was a fool, and should take his second chance at freedom more seriously. He tightened his arms around his chest and winced at the pain in his back where his atrophied muscles had strained and torn at the use of his wings.

His movement dragged material across the grazed skin on his shoulder and hip, and most of his leg. With the stab of pain he looked down and pushed the leg coverings down off his hips to inspect the wound there. It was bloody and red, filled with black grit. He figured his other wounds were in a similar condition if the pain was anything to go by. He nodded, understanding the man's repetition of the words 'clean' and 'wound' now, his strange accent and garbled speech taking time to understand.

Castiel huffed out a deep breath, leaning against that solid cold wall at his back, frowning deeply at the contradictory nature of the human. He had definitely tried to help him, and yet; the bed.

The bed was where the alpha took him, and hammered into him until he screamed in agony. Only then would the menenth's leader release; filling him. Only then would he throw him back in his cell, where he would curl up on the floor, whether it was dirt, rock, sand or grass, and sleep until the pain was simply an ache once more, or until he was picked up and used all over again.

He absently picked at the gravel lodged in his hip as he remembered once again the warmth that had stolen over him, physically and mentally, when he pulled the coverings on. They had a name, the menenth, and other angels and demons too, when he saw them on their rare appearances, had coverings. Each species wore something different, and they were seldom referred to. The menenth wore something they called a _breecclouth_ , but what Castiel had on now was far more covering. Soft, warm, and smelling pleasantly of things he could not describe. Castiel had never been covered before; the sensation was almost overwhelming. He bit down on his desire to collapse, to scream—clamped down on those emotions, just like he had always done. He was free now, he had no excuse. He had achieved what no one else ever had, what he had failed to do so many times, and now he had a task—one he could not fail at.

He pulled the leg coverings back up to cover himself, blinking, allowing himself to revel in the ability to do so. He scowled at the growling of his stomach, though, disgusted that he was hungry again so shortly after the huge meal. But, he had been hopeful for more of the tasteless, butter smeared food. He had been certain the man had said something about more, but then; he had indicated the bed. Castiel had fled.

His memory of that moment was confused. Shock and rising terror; the realisation that he had been wrong, too trusting, foolish. The human hadn't been helping him, he had only wanted the same thing as the alpha, the generals, the guards—everyone. He had wanted to rape Castiel, hurt him, thrash him, just like almost everyone he had set eyes on since he had hit puberty.

At the man's mention of the word bed, he had not thought, he had simply left. Despite the spinning nausea, he had run, thrown himself tripping and hopping down the stairs, and out into the rain. Before his hair could even be plastered to his head once again, he had spread his wings and flown to the first planet he _felt_ was safe, uninhabited, known. Somewhere he had been before. Somewhere he knew was barren, empty.

But—he had come back.

He could not run. He had a task to achieve.

He had to warn the humans’ leader—had to tell them the menenth were coming. And not only them.

-

Castiel walked. He walked until night fell once again, and then continued to walk.

He ignored his hunger. It was nothing new.

He had a goal in mind. A path. A course of action. That, and a burning memory of Gabriel’s face, his words imprinted on his mind.

He clung, however, to two words. Two words that the man had said aloud, that had spurred him on, even though he had had to run from him. Two words. The first he did not understand, but believed it to be qualified by the second. 'Police' and 'safe.'

He needed to find another police and tell them that war was coming.

He did not know where to begin looking.

He walked deeper and deeper into the mess of paths between terrifyingly tall buildings, some rotting like an old tree trunk, others gleaming in the light from the false suns lighting the gloom. Everything was dark, fetid, rancid. The stench was unbelievable, the noise of the constant rain distracting. The whole world was a maze—a bleak, unnatural forest, twisting and impenetrable.

He did his best to avoid any humans he saw. They were few enough, and easier to avoid since the throbbing in his head had subsided—since the spinning had calmed. He could concentrate again, make his eyes focus properly; discern their shapes flitting from door to door, bent double against the wind and rain.

There was one thing to be grateful for, he thought with a grimace. The report he had heard given to the alpha so many long seasons ago, appeared to be true. They had described _the enemy—_ humans—as being as disgusting, repulsive, just like the hath, no wings, no halo, no horns, no designation of their power. No manifestation of their true selves.

With his own wings and halo hidden as they always were, Castiel looked human.

It gave him anonymity, something he desperately needed to hold on to. It was the only way to remain free. It was his only true protection. If anyone knew he was a hath, he would be locked up once again, made a pet and raped or beaten daily. He shuddered, and clamped down on his Grace even harder, knowing that his wings and halo were invisible; they felt _different_ when they were manifested, but he was terrified nonetheless.

With a jarring sigh, he realized he was too tired, sore, cold and wet to continue his search in the never ending paths between buildings. He needed to rest before he continued to look for a police, for help. He needed his Grace to recover, his pain to subside.

He walked down another few paths, eventually finding a deserted one, filled with rubbish, but with a bright yellow, broken cube, sitting alone in deep shadow. It was of a material Castiel didn't know, lying with an opening at the side, only a little smaller than his cell, but open—he was still free. The thing had wheels spinning slowing in the wind, facing the shining wall behind it. Inside, the rain made a noise like a drum as it hit the surface, allowing Castiel to curl up, dry, only a little refuse stuck in the far corner to mar his refuge.

He screwed his eyes closed, feeling that old tension rising. He was exhausted, but as ever, when it came to trying to sleep, all he could focus on was the slightest noise, the slightest suggestion that he was about to be picked up, slammed down and used, or abused. He gritted his teeth, remembering Gabriel’s face, his words, his warmth. The knowledge that if he fought long enough and hard enough, he would eventually be free, he would eventually make Gabriel proud.

He shuddered and purposefully redirected his thoughts to his pain, like always. This time though, glorious in the freedom that the pain was testament to.

As his muscles screamed, he finally began to relax, still listening intently to the rain, and any sound beyond. He thought back to the one bright point of his day, of the time spent travelling through this strange world.

He had found two or three buildings with walls like the man's dwelling. Impossible glass spread side to side and lit from within with more unnatural glows. Inside had been many different things, most of which he did not recognize or understand. But, he had discovered, many of the items had writing on them.

In one building, he had seen bottles, and as something familiar, he had stood and stared long and hard, sounding out the words written in a scrawled hand upon the glass. There were different words, different languages, but once he whispered the words aloud to himself, he began to realize that one of the languages was the first the man had spoken. Not his native tongue, but something resembling one of the tongues the menenth could speak, repeated across many of the worlds they had stamped through.

The pronunciation was very different, the spelling and sentence structure, too, but seeing the words written, he believed he could pick it up easily.

The American tongue, his native language, was mangled here too, but much easier to make out. The man had spoken many words he recognized, and seeing them written down made the transition easier. The structure was a little different too, but simple enough. He would only need to listen hard to understand. He thought that the man, talking to him in his dwelling, would have been understandable if only he had slowed down a little.

He shivered and curled up tighter against the strange yellow material, wrapping his arms closely around his chest, ignoring the errant thoughts of being crept up on and the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

Gabriel had always taught him to be a fighter, to never give up. And no matter what, Castiel would fight. He might never see his brother again, and after sixty seasons he had given up hope entirely, but he had fought for his freedom and achieved it. He had to hold onto that, that glorious, hot feeling as it swelled in his chest again, bubbling up into a grin.

He was free. Free to save the worlds—

That wonderful feeling didn't fade, not for a long time. It felt just like the moment when the human had brought his attention to his own back. He had not understood all the words, but he knew what that aching pain in his muscles signified, those torn muscles evidence of his first insane, uncontrolled, flailing flight.

He smiled even as he considered the mission he would not abandon, falling into his first heavy sleep in years, filled with dreams of freedom and huge responsibility.

-

Castiel awoke, instantly alert, to the wailing screaming noise he vaguely remembered hearing in one of those first confused memories after his botched landing on earth.

He got up, crawling from the yellow box and stretched his cramped, stiff muscles. Taking the briefest of moments to revel in the absence of rain hitting his bare head, he stepped back onto the path between the decaying heaps of rotting detritus to began his search once more. He needed to find help, needed to warn the human's leader, needed to make Gabriel’s memory proud.

By noon, at his guess, through the perpetually dark gray sky, he was almost bent double with the cramped pain in his gut. He was hungry, thirsty too, having not dared to drink from the filthy puddles that covered the gray ground everywhere he walked.

The nausea caused by days with nothing more than the dry, bland, but salty bread and butter the human had given him, made his head spin once again.

He cursed the amount of time it was taking for his body to heal. He assumed it was the  lifetime of suppression and the three flights he had been forced to take, but it was frustrating, knowing that his body was supposed to be capable of much more than it was currently doing.

The flights had expended far more Grace than he had expected. The first; long, arduous, and uncontrolled as he bounced from world to world, flickering between forest, mountain, plains, fire, desert and encampments. Many encampments. None as hard walled and highly built or gray as this. Mostly earthen shacks, tents or wooden dwellings. Sometimes woven huts among the trees, sometimes doors at the end of grassy mounds, but encampments nonetheless. This— This was something else.

Something he had no word for. Something massive.

He was yet to see a boundary, a horizon, a tree. It had not escaped his notice either, that he was yet to see the sun, the rain constantly pulling grit and dirt from the heavy clouds overhead.

_What had happened to this world?_ he wondered, aghast, as he took in the piles of rotting filth, things he could not identify, but dead animals too, and brightly colored pieces of the same material that he had slept under. There was glass and ceramic and bone, bits of twisted and contorted metal, rotting wood, torn and shredded fabric, and many small pieces of the various building materials they used. Nothing was cared for, everything degrading, falling, drowning.

Castiel walked the paths the entire day, his head tilted upward at a painful angle, intermittently picking grit from his cheek and shoulder wound under the wet coverings he wore.

He wondered how a world, a people, could make something so awesome and take so little care of it.

He saw humans, demons, and angels alike, on the paths, each looking nearly as worn down and broken as the buildings that surrounded them, just and worn down as the man who had helped—and then all but threatened to rape him.

He almost certainly looked no different—just as worn down, just as broken. Not that he knew what he looked like, he had never seen himself—not really.

He understood—he knew the hard reflective building material would show him what he looked like. But, he could not bring himself to look, could not bring himself to look properly at the dark shadow that was reflected back when he peered inside, the shadow that was clearly him.

As he walked, the sun setting behind it's seemingly permanent bank of cloud, he started to see more people walking or standing on the various paths without a purpose. He saw a child tear a bag from a woman's shoulder and run off down the gap between two towering buildings. He saw a youthful demon down a small path, alone, stabbing a needle into his arm, pushing a liquid deep into the flesh. He saw people coupling out in the rain— That last made him turn and retch, dry heaving up yellow bile until there was nothing but burning in his gullet. They had both been smiling, laughing even. He couldn't comprehend what there was about _that_ to smile about.

Later still, he witnessed a fight between two humans. One smashed one of their brittle bottles, spewing foaming liquid on the ground, and used it to cut at the neck of the other. A female angel, a species he had never seen before, wailed in the background. He walked the other direction, wondering why he should bother to save this world, why he shouldn’t just let the menenth fall through the Bridge with an army made up of the creatures of so many worlds.

The almost familiar screeching noise, rising and falling, hit his ears once again, this time louder, piercing and close. A carriage sped past, similar but different to the one the man had taken him to his dwelling in. It flashed past him so fast, blue and red light hurting Castiel’s eyes as it went, taking the wailing noise with it, modulating and seeming to slow before the noise stopped along with the carriage. He stared at it, stationary right by the bleeding man, the broken bottle and the crying angel. The car had words on it, which he sounded out once again, hissing under his breath.

“Po-li-ce. Pol-ice. Police.”

With a surge of pride and ferocious drive he turned and started walking in the direction it had come from. When the wailing started up again, screaming behind, around, then in front of him, he followed it, on and on, until it stopped.

It didn't take much searching of the area to find a building with a board outside of it, with the now familiar word written in blue and white.

-

“Ugh—here we go,” were the grunted words that greeted Castiel as he walked into the building, his head cocked, listening hard, not comprehending the meaning, but understanding the tone.

The human that had spoken—eyes rolling—was sitting behind a tall table in front of the doors, at the end of the hard, stone lined room.

For the first time in his life he felt conscious of his appearance.

He walked forward carefully, placing each wet, squelching, covered foot on the slippery surface, head held high, hair soaked, moisture clinging to his beard, blood stained. He could smell himself, an aroma of filth, refuse, and damp material following him in.

People were staring.

He was used to being completely ignored, a part of the furniture, simply somewhere to ram an erection or slam a fist. Nobody ever looked at him. He was disgusting to the menenth, their followers acted the same. But he looked human, here he should be accepted as normal, neither worth noticing, nor deserving of being ignored, he should be just like everybody else he had observed that day. Here, though he was being outright stared at.

The words the human had spoken had been said in the language he could not properly understand, could only just read. He hoped that, like the first man, this one would understand him when he spoke American.

“I need to speak to the leader,” he croaked out, his throat dry, but his voice steady, despite the hunger gnawing at his belly and the feel of the eyes boring into his back.

The man, fat and gross, like some tribal leaders became before the menenth overran them, leaned forward and laughed. His eyebrow raised in obvious question. Castiel wondered briefly if this _was_ the leader. Fat from eating the best of the crop and hunt, taking more than his fair fill.

“There is an army coming. You must prepare. I must warn the leader.”

He repeated the last phrase, wondering if his words were falling on deaf ears. As he repeated the words, the man's features screwed up in red faced amusement. Castiel knew the first man—the one he had fled from—had understood him, at least a little, why did this man laugh?

“Look buddy,” the fat man spat in his garbled version of American. Castiel frowned at the second word, knowing the first man had used it too, and still not understanding it. “I'm only gonna say this once.”

Castiel canted his head to the side, concentrating, desperate not to miss a word. “Get your drunk ass outta here, you homeless piece of shit.” The man sneered, sending a hot gush of breath over Castiel's face, making him wrinkle his nose, despite the lack of rancid stink.

Castiel felt frustration swell in his chest, filling him up, with nowhere to go. He had not understood every word, but the meaning had been plain. He wasn't believed, and he had to leave.

He tried again, slowly enunciating his words, hoping to finally be taken seriously, trying to remain calm—something he was not always very good at. He bit down on his Grace, refusing it to let shine through, and biting down on his anger, too. A beating would not help this accursed world.

He could not, would not, hurt these people, and without the bindings, it would not be difficult to do so if he lost control. He was to fight, yes; Gabriel's words were instilled deep, but he was to fight for good. He must not hurt innocents, whether they were ignorant and rude, foul and fat, or not.

“I must speak. Your leader,” he all but begged, edging toward the inner entrance that led further within the stone lined building.

Biting his tongue deep to stop from reacting, self preservation at the very top of his list, Castiel found himself wrapped up in the hold of three large humans, far bulkier than his own underfed frame. Whistling sounded from off to his side, yelling, shouting, laughing, a tumble of words he couldn't comprehend before he found himself lying on the soaked, hard, gray ground outside of the building.

He sat for a moment, stunned, not at their physical actions, but by the fact that they weren't even interested in saving their world.

Staring mutely at the door, every single jagged and angry wound seemed to vie for his attention once again. Even the phantom pains in his wrists and ankles, where the manacles had been from his earliest memories, came back ten fold. But he made no sound, neither groaned as his weight shifted on his behind, reminding him of his torn hole and flayed skin, nor sobbed as his torn ear, missing half the cartilage, stabbed pain through his head with burning agony. He just sat and stared and tried to find the momentum to stand, to try again, to warn someone, anyone, to do anything at all.

“Castiel?” A warm, worried voice sounded behind him and he spun, wincing a little as his movement aggravated the wounds across his behind.

There, standing tall above him, wrapped up against the rain filled night, was the first man—his rescuer come would-be-attacker.

Castiel watched, shocked, tired, bewildered, and confused, as the human dropped to his knees onto the rain covered, hard ground right next to him. “Thank god I found you,” he muttered in his broken American, face tense, a frown cutting his forehead deep. “I was so fucking worried, man.” He looked like he wanted to touch Castiel, but he held back, his hands hovering in the air where he crouched. “I just wanted to help. I didn't mean—“ he took a breath, breaking off, shaking his head.

“I didn't mean sex, okay? No sex. I promise. I'll never make you do that, god, I just wanted to help you— Do you understand? Heat, help, food, clean, sleep. That's all.” His words were fast, but low pitched and earnest, just clear enough for Castiel to make them out. He nodded slowly, believing him, for the moment at least—

He took a chance.

“You. You'll help me?” he asked, wincing at the dryness of his throat, despite the constant never ending, bitterly cold rain. “I need to warn the leader, I have to. Tell the leader a war is coming.”

He spoke slowly, staring into the man's eyes, trying to get his message across, begging internally that he would be understood.

He watched as the man seemed to consider, biting his lip and frowning, looking away, down at the gray floor Castiel still sat on.

Castiel gritted his teeth, tired of yelling, desperate to be heard.

Finally, the man’s eyes flicked up to meet his again, a passing beam of light illuminating the clear glowing green there, the long eyelashes. He nodded.

Castiel nearly sobbed in relief.

His head dropped back on his shoulders, eyes closing as he felt a tremendous burden lift. He wasn't finished, but it was a start. The man would help.

He sensed the human rise back up, and he opened his eyes, blinking away rain and tears of relief as he focused on the human's outstretched hand, once again, offering him help.

“Come on, Castiel, let's get you inside.”

Castiel took his hand.


	4. Chapter 4

“Alright buddy, what's your last name?” Dean asked the sodden man sitting across from him at the small table in the interview room.

Castiel tilted his head at him, confusion written across his face. “Castiel.” He responded flat and tired, as if stating the obvious.

“Right,” Dean sighed, “your first name then?”

The man's head tilted even further over, his frown becoming even more pronounced, as if Dean was an idiot. “Castiel,” he reiterated slowly.

Dean took a breath, silently pleading for patience. “Riiiight,” he drawled. “Castiel Castiel. Of course.”

He closed his eyes, letting the breath out slowly.

He wasn't sure how this man had insinuated his way into Dean's life in a matter of a few hours two days ago, but he had, and Dean had spent those two days on the lookout for a mass of dark hair, a scruffy beard, and his own gray sweater.

Two days of terrible sleep and an even worse shift in between.

Two days that had brought the man to Dean's feet right outside the precinct, minutes before he was meant to begin work for the night.

He should be grateful, but what he really wanted were some straight answers.

“Okay dude. You see, here, we got two names, sometimes more.” He paused to make sure the man was following him. “I'm Dean Winchester,” he held his hand to his chest to help the meaning get across, then stretched his hand out to Castiel. “It's a pleasure to meet you.” The man simply looked at at his outstretched palm, making Dean sigh again. “You take it, hold it,” Dean said, and nodded at his hand.

The man’s expression contorted into a disbelieving expression, clearly stating 'What the hell?' without the words. Nonetheless, he reached his hand out and lightly gripped Dean's palm.

His hand was cold, still wet from the rain. Dean noticed, for the first time, red welts running around his wrist. “Okay, then you introduce yourself.” And with that he shook Castiel's hand gently and indicated to him expectantly with the other hand.

“Cas—Ti—El.” he said, even more slowly, his voicing grating and low.

“Of course,” Dean sighed, “no second name at all?”

Castiel just shook his head and looked at his hand strangely when Dean released him.

“Naturally,” he huffed, rolling his eyes a little and shifting in his seat to get comfortable. “Okay, Cas. I just gotta run a search, 'cause I'm meant to be charging you with drunk and disorderly, seeing as I walked in just as they kicked you to the curb—” he paused to tap the man's name into the old computer, whirring boxes stacked on the table. “But without a last name, it'll take a moment.” Dean eyed Castiel. He sat there, eyes taking in the room, shivering and rolling his shoulders absently.

“Those still hurt?” he asked, snapping the man's attention back to himself. He frowned and cocked his head in question, a quirk that Dean had to bite his tongue not to smile at.

“The bruises. All over your back? You were pretty badly beaten up. You got scratches and cuts and—y'know. Before you— Before I freaked you out and you ran, I was going to see what I could do to help. With your injuries.”

The man swallowed thickly and licked his cracked, bloody lips, still staring intently at Dean.

In his thick accent, speaking clearly, he asked; “You were helping? I need to speak to the leader. War. War is coming.”

Dean did not hide his eye roll this time, in response to both his first and second statements. “Yes. I was trying to help.” He nodded, a half smile on his face. He slowed his speech a little, to help the man understand. His frequent blank expression proved he did not understand everything Dean said—they clearly spoke the same language, the native, but it seemed to be a different dialect, as if he came from a long way from the Complex. “And yeah, I get that you feel you need to warn someone. We'll talk about that, I promise, but I'm meant to be arresting you, so I need to get you processed first.”

The man frowned. “Processed?”

Before Dean could explain, the computer bleeped, making Castiel jump, as a box popped up on the screen listing every 'Castiel,' or similar, in the system. The list was short, most of the names that popped up belonged to angels or demons and none of them were close enough to how he thought Castiel's name should be spelled.

“How do you actually spell your name? You're not coming up,” he looked up at the man, away from the screen and found him shrugging and shaking his head.

“You can't spell your own name?” The man half shrugged again, beginning to look impatient, chewing his lip.

“Never seen it written. I probably could—” and with that he spelled it out, letter for letter as Dean had typed it, clearly making it up as he went.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Are you— I dunno, from some commune or something? I mean, angels and demons got some strange habits, but they gotta be registered to be on Earth, and you clearly ain’t one in any case—” he broke off and sighed.

“I mean, some escape, 'n we pick 'em up, unregistered. Most humans register as well though. Some religious folks don't, some people still believe in God...” he trailed off realising he was rambling and the man's expression was sitting somewhere between confused and fearful, his blue eyes wide.

“For fuck's sake,” he huffed under his breath, berating himself for scaring the man again.

He eyed the pulped mess that was the man's ear and made a decision.

“I'm not gonna arrest ya. I doubt my boss would notice, he's just glad he don't have to deal with ya, so I'm gonna take you back home again. You need a fucking shower man,” he said as he clicked out of the records program, shrugging off the mystery of the man's identity. “We need to get your injuries clean, with what you've been through in the last few days.”

Dean looked up in time to see the Castiel's eyes widen, in anger this time. “I need to warn! War. Is. Coming.” He enunciated each word, leaning forward in his chair, a deep scowl cutting his features, sending foul breath Dean's way.

“Woah!” Dean recoiled, from Castiel's impassioned words more than his homeless aroma. Dean could smell blood and come still clinging to him, too, in the warmth of the office they were in. He desperately wanted to help this man.

“Yeah,” he held up his hands, placating, “I'm not ignoring that. But you need to get cleaned up, or you ain’t gonna last long enough to get a chance to warn anyone!” He pushed to his feet, leaning on the desk, fixing Castiel with a stare. “You had concussion two days ago, you've been raped, you're still fucking bleeding,” he spat, glancing at the man's ear again. “I want to help you get better, I want to help you get warm, and fed and healed, okay?”

He stood straight, less imposing, less confrontational, remembering his training finally. “I am not going to touch you,” he promised with emphasis, before continuing, “you can _sleep_ in my bed. While I'm at work. I can clean your wounds. You can tell me all about this war, okay?”

As the man sat back, mollified, Dean found himself thinking that he must be crazy to believe this man. Everything he spouted, from not having a surname, and not knowing how to spell the one name he did have, to clearly having been raped yet completely disregarding his own wounds— They screamed crazy to Dean.

Except they didn't. They should, they should do exactly that, but something small, something Sam had once talked of, something his father had laughed off, spoke to him.

This man had a mission, this man wanted help, and this man might have been tortured or imprisoned. Almost any other police officer would have shrugged him off, left him out in the rain to go back into the night. That, or they would have given him a kicking, or brought him in for target practice for their tasers.

Who would notice? Who would care?

Dean would, damn it.

“You wouldn't last two minutes in a cell here, anyway,” he muttered, under his breath, knowing the typical inmates would eat him for breakfast, torment him for fun.

Castiel's reaction proved to Dean, too late, that his words had been spoken too loud. The man's chair went skittering back, falling to the floor with a clatter, and he stepped back, eyes wide and angry.

“Police have cells? Imprison people?” he yelled, frightened—god, did he look frightened. Frightened, furious and betrayed.

“Sometimes. Yes. Bad people. Not you, Cas, not you. Okay? You're free to go. Will you go _with_ me?”

He watched as the man calmed a little, that look of betrayal still vivid on his face, anger narrowing his hard gaze. Shit, Dean thought, that was a nail in the coffin for his imprisonment theory. The man got more and more fascinating, just as Dean got more and more concerned, an itch building behind his ribs to care for the shaken and confused man, injuries, fear, fury, aroma and all.

-

Castiel was disgusted, nauseated. This human in front of him, one he had stupidly put his trust in a second time, turned out to be part of an organisation that put people into cells, _just as he had been_.

The man, _Dean Winchester,_ had told him that the police helped.

Bile rose again, burning the back of his throat, but the man's hands rose in surrender.

Castiel relaxed a little as he man reiterated that he was free to go, that he wouldn't be put back in a cell. The declaration gave him a moment to think, to try and work out whether he was doing the right thing trusting the police with this information, whether they would do something after all to save the world, whether his information would be able to prevent the menenth and tak taking _every_ world as their own.

When Dean Winchester asked him if he would go with him, Castiel felt himself waver. He eyed the man once again, trying to ascertain if he should trust—allow this man to help him. He did not like that he had kept mentioning the bed when he had first come across him on the floor, and again in this small room, but even he had admit that the other words; clean, heat, food, sleep, sounded appealing. He had slept—in the yellow box—but to be clean? He remembered the feeling of the damp fabric the man, Dean Winchester, had given him before, how nice it had been to wipe away the dirt. He would like to wipe away more of the dirt that had built up on this filthy world, and the process had been far nicer than having a bucket of cold water doused over his head once a season. The man kept mentioning healing and wounds too. He couldn't fathom how the man could help with that. He healed in time, or the wounds were constantly aggravated. Now he was free though, his Grace would be able to recover in time, and the wounds would close over eventually.

It was the deep, but inaudible, rumble of his belly that swayed his decision. The man was correct. If he remained in the state he was in for much longer, dehydration and starvation would finish him before he could help to protect the Earth from the twin armies working to push through to the outermost of the worlds closest to Earth, on the Wind and Fire sides simultaneously.

He hesitated a moment longer, trying to push his Grace out, trying to see the man's soul, trying to discover the truth past the man's words. But something blocked his senses. He slumped a little in defeat, feeling exhaustion creep up on him once more. His Grace must be even more depleted that he had believed; days of hunger and cold, the two flights he had made to escape the man in front of him, who he was willing to believe once more, willing to follow and trust.

He inclined his head to the man, silently letting him know that he would go with him, just as he had asked.

The smile that covered the man's face pulsed something warm inside of Castiel. Something that made him believe he was making the correct decision, if just for now.

-

Castiel was shaking with an exhausting mix of fear, resignation and anger as Dean Winchester led him back through the building, out into the rain-filled night, so heavy that he could see only the glowing lights that everything on this world seemed to have. He still could not work out how they illuminated without fire, Grace or something natural.

He had capitulated silently to Dean Winchester's pleading promises, and allowed him to place manacles on his wrists. He had bitten the inside of his cheek bloody with frustration and suppressed anger, mostly directed at himself as he had willingly let himself be captured once again. To be chained, even if his captor had promised that it was a ruse, that it was the only method to get him out of the _precinct_ , as the building was known, without getting him locked in a cell.

He had not spoken, not trusting his voice to remain calm, not believing himself capable of restraining his depleted Grace from lashing out. So he had nodded, and blinked back tears when the police had not been looking.

One of Dean Winchester's hands was resting lightly on his shoulder, the other gripping one of his forearms, just above the metal binding his wrists together behind his back. The metal was not iridium, it could not contain him, yet he was not strong enough to break free of it, despite how loosely the man had fastened the cuffs.

They had stepped through the doors into the narrow pathway through the precinct. Through each door, Castiel presumed there were more rooms like the one he had sat in with Dean Winchester, maybe each holding a man just trying to save a world full of ungrateful and disbelieving humans from certain destruction.

He had limply allowed the police to shove him along, the grip on his shoulder more reassuring and supporting than restraining.

Once through another set of doors, he found himself in the first room he had entered upon finding the precinct, with the tall table and the fat man still leering.

“It's Losechester!” he called out as they passed, and he felt Dean Winchester's grip tighten almost painfully on his arm and shoulder.

“What are you doing with the hobo, huh? I thought you were puttin' him in the cells? Gonna take him around back for a beatin first?”

Castiel understood enough of the words, spoken in the American language, to get the meaning of the man's words, but the tone of his voice had been enough. “Finally grown a pair huh, Winchester? Finally realized you need to step up if you wanna help keep the streets clean. Your daddy mighta finally thought you worth somethin'” the gross man continued, a smirk plastered across his face.

Castiel had tensed up, wondering if, once again with this particular human, he had misplaced his trust. Had he allowed himself to be put back in manacles just to be beaten?

“Yeah yeah, Walt,” Dean Winchester had answered, false bravado ringing through the words he could not understand, if the tense grip he had on Castiel was anything to go by.

“Laugh it up. I’m taking him to the fucking hospital.” He had grumbled the words out, but Castiel hadn't been able to twist to look at his face, to try and work out what the words meant, to see if he was safe or not.

Castiel was getting tired of only half understanding anything that was spoken around him, lies on top of lies, half truths—

In his cage, he was either ignored, fucked, or beaten. No one spoke to him, unless it was an order. He never had to try and discern if anything was real or not. This place left his head spinning.

“Even you'd get reprimanded for lettin' a suspect die in the cells, Walt,” Dean had spat back over his shoulder as they passed the tall table. Castiel had stumbled as Dean Winchester's elbow had connected with his back, nudging him harshly toward the doors. His possibly-captor had grumbled and, with gentle fingers still, had yelled “Move!” in his ear.

Through the doors, Castiel was half pushed, half supported down the steps and pushed across that dark, rain filled, flat space in front of the building. Before he could feel any relief at recognizing the same black carriage that Dean Winchester had put him in that first night, a deep lilting voice rang out across the space, bringing Dean Winchester, and his restraining hands, to a halt.

“Brother!” Castiel heard Dean Winchester groan a little as he turned around, dragging Castiel with him, the rain pounding against his already soaked head.

“What's up partner? When I got in I was told you were interviewin' and now you're leaving? We not on patrol tonight?”

Castiel listened to the words that the two men spoke to each other in their native tongue, the rumbling tone of Dean Winchester's voice, and the soft, musical tone of the other as he picked out the occasional word that sounded almost familiar to him.

“I”, “take” and “home” he recognized, garbled words sitting between them, “hurt” sprang out, then a whole stream of unintelligible syllables. He watched as the bulkier man nodded in understanding, a sympathetic expression on his face. He slapped Dean Winchester on the shoulder, and nodded at Castiel, making eye contact for the briefest of moments before speaking again. The only word Castiel understood of the second man's speech was the repeated word “you” which didn't give him any meaning of the whole.

Dean Winchester nodded and put gentle pressure on Castiel's shoulder to turn him around again, toward his carriage. He looked around worriedly before opening up the door and pushing Castiel forward into the seat. He landed in the seat with a thump and found the door already closed on him, his body weight resting painfully on his arms twisted behind him. Panic rose yet again as he was left alone, restrained and captured, until the door on the other side opened and Dean Winchester slid into the seat beside him. He began poking at bits of the carriage until a quiet humming reached Castiel’s ears, and the police looked around them once more, before making the carriage move away at speed.

Castiel remained silent, chewing the inside of his cheek, the subsided panic rising again, and higher, knowing that he was still manacled, leaving his chest tight, his muscles taut.

It took long moments of nauseating fear before the man looked across at him and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh fuck,” his captor spat out in American, making Castiel jerk back in fear against the door.

“No, no. You're good,” the human muttered, making Castiel confused on top of everything else. How could he possibly be good, under the circumstances?

“Don't worry,” the man spoke again, flicking his gaze from the path to Castiel once more.

Castiel watched Dean Winchester’s hands turn the wheel to the right and the carriage slowed to a stop. The man got out. Castiel prepared to fight, his meager Grace rising.

The door behind him opened, toppling him over a little until hands braced his shoulders and pushed him until he was leaning forward. He couldn't help the whimper that rose in his throat as he summoned his Grace to fight, ignoring his shock at nearly falling, at the prone position he was being forced into.

“Crap, calm down, Cas. I'm going to unlock the handcuffs okay? Okay? Shit. Do you understand? I'm freeing you.” He did understand. Or at the least, most of the words made sense to him, but he was past trusting anything, past believing that the words he knew meant the same to him as they did to the police. He felt a warm hand grip his own gently, felt the rain splashing from something onto the back of his neck, and pressure at his wrists. He felt an old familiar fear-anger boiling under his skin.

Suddenly his hands were free once again, those same warm hands pulling him up by the shoulders, straightening him around so his back pressed against the seat comfortably. He looked at the man, illuminated in the glow from within the carriage, worry clearly etched across his face as he crouched next to him out in the pouring rain, looking up at Castiel. “I'm sorry, man, I didn't mean to frighten you. I had to keep up the charade, uh, the lie, for Walt back in the precinct. They wouldn't let me just free you. I had to make it look like I had really arrested you and was really taking you to hospital. Do you understand?” He looked concerned, and more than a little tired of the constant effort of getting through to Castiel. He could understand _that_ , at least.

He nodded slowly, keeping eye contact with the man, flexing his hands in front of him. He watched as the police's eyes tracked his movement. “You are free. I'll never imprison you Cas,” he stated slowly, fervently.

Castiel finally opened his mouth to take a breath, to speak for the first time since the human had convinced him he would help him. “Thank you, Dean Winchester.”

The man's lip ticked up a little and his eyes suddenly became warm rather than worried. “My pleasure, Cas,” he answered, and Castiel smiled the tiniest amount at the shortened version of his name and the sentiment behind the statement.

The human closed the carriage door softly and moved around to the other door once again, sitting behind the wheel and the buttons, drenched from the constant rain. The light was instantly extinguished as the door closed, and Castiel, finally feeling safe enough to allow his curiosity to peak, let his mind wonder and his mouth open.

He took a breath before looking over at the human. “Dean Winchester, how does this carriage move? Nothing pulls it,” he asked, speaking slowly so that his meaning did not get lost.

Dean Winchester frowned briefly before sparing Castiel a glance.

“Er, it's Dean, just Dean. You don't need to use my second name too. And, it’s a car, not a carriage.” Castiel frowned as the man made a disbelieving face at his silence.

“It runs on electricity?” Dean raised his eyebrows, his tone incredulous. Castiel shook his head a little, indicating that the man's words were not answering his question, they meant nothing to him.

Dean looked over again, flicking his eyes from the path they were moving down. His frustrated groan at Castiel's confusion made him feel a little guilty, but he was curious, and finally had a moment free from terror where he could ask. The first moment, really. His first curiosity.

“Electricity. Made in an anti-matter reactor. You know, like in the Bomb?”

Castiel had no idea what the human was talking about.

“Jeez, how do you not know this stuff? The Bomb? The reason the world is fucked? The reason for the Bridge? Basic history, man!” Castiel just shrugged, until some of the meaning of Dean's words filtered through.

A bomb, whatever that was, caused the Bridge?

He knew that the Bridge had not always been there. The creation of the Bridge was the reason he was here, trying to warn these dense humans that a war was coming, the reason for the war in the first place.

On the menenth's home world, the legend said that a dust cloud had spread, felling every tree in a fifteen-thousand length radius, evaporating people and burning the ground. Lucifer, the king, the leader, their alpha, _their God_ , had approached, had stepped inside and had been torn from the world.

Days later he had tumbled back to the barren ground, his wings twisted and torn, his halo ruined, his body broken and his mind gone. Their most powerful angel had been destroyed by the half-sphere of heat haze sitting low to the ground, half the sky-wide.

It took years of experimentation, of throwing the weakest of their kind into the Bridge to learn what it really was.

When a person entered, they were thrown from one end to the other, bouncing and rebounding in a maelstrom of light and color, battering and breaking their body and soul. The least powerful angels came out alive, because they went in with so little. Some fell to the ground on the opposite side of the Bridge, discovering the tak. Others bounced back to the menenth's world, still others landed at a neutral world in the middle. Some of these re-entered the Bridge and returned to tell their tales. Many died or went insane, the source of their power; their wings, their halos, broken beyond any ability to heal.

Years of sending slaves though the bridge, and hoping for the best, in order to communicate with the tak, demons whose leader, too, was consumed by the Bridge, resulted in a discovery that made the Bridge stable enough to step through to the next world, in the direction of either Wind or Fire.

A ring of iron links, surrounding all forty-eight thousand lengths of  the Bridge.

With that stability, the menenth and the tak moved, stepping from world to world, seeking revenge on the neutral planet they believed had lured their gods, their best and brightest, from them.

Castiel shook his head and focused on Dean again.

“Crap,” Dean grunted. “So, there was a war. The whole world was fighting, no one knows why now,” he continued, settling himself back in the chair, eyes glued to the path he was maneuvering the _car_ down. “Bombs were dropped on so many cities, the explosions razed them to the ground, millions of people died. Billions. The bombs were nuclear—” he quickly glanced at Castiel, who was rapt, but not understanding, “—uh, that is to say, kind of poisonous. Like, uh, poisonous, um, meteorites? Huge ones? They physically destroyed things, but also made people, animals and the land sick.”

Dean took a deep breath before continuing, looking back at the path. “Then a man's invention was hijacked—stolen. He had wanted to make electricity, power, without burning coal or oil or gas, because we’d nearly run out.” He looked over at Castiel to make sure he understood. He did, for the most part and nodded for Dean to continue. “Well, his invention made lots and lots of power, and they somehow turned it into a bomb. They dropped it in the middle of America.”

The human heaved a sigh. “It ended the war. It was an explosion so many times bigger than anything we’d seen before. It, along with years of nuclear bombs being dropped everywhere, turned the sky black, what with the amount of ash that was thrown up into the air. It raised the temperature of the Earth, which made the sea rise. The black sky made the Earth cold again. That's why it never stops raining, that’s why the sun never shines through the cloud. It's why there's hardly any people—not enough food…

“So, although the Bomb ended the war, it destroyed our planet even more fully than we had already managed. From all that though, the Bridge was made,” he broke off again, muttering to himself that he couldn’t believe that Castiel didn’t know it, before sighing and starting his tale again. “The Complex was built around it in a huge ring, something like sixty-five miles around. It took about fifty years for all that to happen though, for them to learn to control it and jump anywhere they wanted.”

Dean shrugged, a sad expression on his face. “I guess the inventor of anti-matter got his wish though. They finally built power plants using the technology. That's what makes the car work.” He looked at Castiel briefly again, “It also makes light and heat and the secondnet work and, well, pretty much everything.”

Castiel's head was spinning from the huge influx of foreign terms, but he generally got the gist. A large explosion had killed the Earth, and the humans had tamed the power of it to make cars move and lights glow. He was stunned.

-

Castiel watched with interest as Dean strolled across his _apartment,_ as he had discovered it was called, and stepped into the ceramic tiled food area.

He finally had a moment to take in the room as he watched Dean retrieve the same fluffy bread as he had given him before. His eyes slid from the bed, despite what Dean had said about _sleeping_ on it, and he suppressed a shudder, hugging his hands around his damp chest. On the other side of the bed was a door that led to the room where Dean kept the cleaning material. In the corner was the food area and behind him were a chair a table and the wide soft looking chair that Castiel very much wanted to sit upon.

Dean walked across the room with a dish in his hand, the hot bread, as before slathered in salty butter. Eyeing the table where Dean had placed the dish suddenly reminded him of Dean putting the coverings there that first time, when he had been sick and disorientated. His curiosity rose once again, but he really hoped that the answer would be less convoluted than Dean's explanation about the car.

“Dean?” the man turned around at his voice. “What are these called?” he asked, tugging at the torso covering and then gesturing to the rest of his body.

Dean's eyes widened before be frowned and tilted his head almost questioningly. “That's, uh, a sweater, Cas,” he replied looking confused and Castiel frowned.

He may not have a complete grasp of the tongue, but he didn't think Dean had answered his question properly. He tugged the gray thing again. “Sweater?”

Dean ran a hand through his hair. “Shit, yeah, man. I'll get you clean clothes in a bit okay? I have another sweater somewhere.”

Castiel swiped his hand across his body again. “These are called clothes?” Dean just nodded dumbly, a horrified look on his face.

Castiel smiled, pleased to have the correct word. “I like them,” he stated, hoping that Dean's expression would be tempered by his words, as he turned to his meal.

It took a moment before Dean turned back to the food area, wiping at his face for some reason as he stood with his back turned to Castiel.

Over the next few moments, Castiel focused entirely on eating the hot bread, then devouring the broth he was given, and then more _toast,_ as Dean announced it, that he placed by his elbow. His attention was only restored to the man helping him, when he crouched down in front of him on the floor, looking intently up into Castiel's face.

“Hey, I gotta go back to work soon okay?” Castiel nodded, grasping his meaning, hoping for more toast. “I'll show you the bathroom. You need to shower and shave and things. Not sure I can do much about your wounds now, but I'll show you the cleaning stuff for them.” Castiel's attention drifted slightly to some squares with small colorful paintings inside of them fixed to the wall, until Dean stood up abruptly, and took his hand, dragging him to the bathroom, where he proceeded to show him everything, point to it, name it and tell him how to use it.

It seemed like an age until he heard the door to the apartment close, Dean having gently nudged him back into the bathroom and closed the door on his face.

He turned with a bewildered sigh to the array of things he was meant to do; the toothbrush, the razor, the shower, the toilet.

He shivered and decided that he would turn on the shower first, Dean had said it would be hot. He wriggled the dial and waited as he had been instructed, turning to the toothbrush with a grim expression on his bearded face.

By the time he was done with his teeth, which had stung and bled, and made the back of his throat feel cold, he was already tired of cleaning and washing himself. He turned to the now steaming shower, unimpressed, and stripped, deciding to get the chore over with.

He stepped under the falling water and gasped with pleasure.

-

“So, Brother.” Benny began, an eyebrow raised. “I reckon we both got stuff to be doing tonight, yeah?” Dean looked across to his friend and just waited. Benny had been dropping hints since Dean had rejoined him at work, patrolling the slick and scummy streets and getting gently mocked for taking the injured “crazy hobo” to hospital.

He and Benny would normally head straight to a bar after finishing their shift, but Benny knew he wanted to get home to look out for Castiel. Benny clearly had a plan for the evening too. “Go on,” Dean prompted, fishing his car keys from his pocket.

“Mmmm… Andrea,” was all Benny said in reply, a dreamy look on his face.

“Please, not the one who was using you as a jungle gym the other night?” Dean asked. She’d been cute, but annoying, and not girlfriend material for Benny. He liked them fiery, not cutesy and clingy.

“Hell no!” Benny retorted, his face morphing to a comically appalled look. “Nah brother. She's a vamiir; met Andrea on the front steps as I waved the ravbaa off!” he grinned, and with a nod, sauntered away before Dean had a chance to congratulate him.

There was not one single recorded instance of a conception between mixed species relationships. If you wanted a blood-related child of your own, you had to find a partner from your own planet. It was cruel and painful, but it meant that the adoption rate was high for mixed species couples, despite the picketers standing outside of the orphanages. Dean was pleased, he knew Benny wanted a wife, kids, despite his bachelor lifestyle and regular hook-ups. He hoped this Andrea worked out for him.

Dean threw himself into the Impala, pulling his hat from his head and shaking off the rain that had dampened his hair despite the protection. He started Baby and pulled away, enjoying a lighter patch of the rain as he sped down the same side streets where he’d found Castiel earlier that week.

He jogged up the steps to the apartment, a smile on his face as he pictured seeing the fiery man curled up in his bed, finally warm, comfortable and well fed.

His smile fled his face as he got to the door, which swung open on it's hinges.

Inside, the apartment was cold and dark and completely empty.

Dean's heart squeezed in his chest, his lungs felt solid. _Why had he gone again?_ All Dean wanted to do was go straight back outside and search the streets, find the man, bring him back home again, look after him. If anyone needed looking after, it was Castiel, quiet, naive, damaged— He had promised to help. He desperately wanted to help the man.

Dean sank to the end of the neatly made, untouched bed, his head in his hands. He didn't know why this man had managed to make Dean care for him when all he did was run from Dean's help, while begging for it at the same time. He was confused, confused about the man's actions, but also his own feelings. How could he miss a man he’d met twice? How could he miss a man who’d probably been some kind of sex slave, who was spouting nonsense about a war coming? He didn't know how, but that disappointed sensation at finding his home empty, was real. He had wanted to see him again, talk to him, help him; and now that he was gone, he missed him.


	5. Chapter 5

Castiel closed his eyes as he felt the hot water sluice over his cold and aching body. His numerous wounds still stung, itched and ached, but the hot water was pure bliss, ecstasy, sublime, divine pleasure. He grinned, and arched his body, turning his face up toward the pouring water.

He had to concede, for all the faults this world had, showers made up for many of them. The _pull_ this world had on his Grace was nothing compared to the pleasure he felt in this moment, as a reason to stay on this rain soaked, sky scorched planet.

He stood for long moments under the deluge, just letting the heat sink into his battered body, watching the spray hit his bruised and sore skin, sluice off and disappear down the hole.

Eventually he remembered Dean's words about soap and shampoo, and he found the correct bottles sitting in the corner of the shower. He poured out the creamy liquid, finding the aroma pleasing, without being able to place it. He rubbed the stuff into his hair, giggling aloud in delight as the bubbles appeared, coursing down his body. The giggles turned to sharp curses when the stuff got in his eyes.

With more caution, he poured out the soap and scrubbed at his skin with the washcloth. He wasn't sure what emotion he felt as the water turned pink when he attacked the skin of his rear, the searing pain of reopened wounds stabbing at him. The water, when it wasn't pink, had been gray-brown. He continued, reapplying soap, scrubbing hard where he could, avoiding the scabbed wounds on his shoulder, head and hip, until the water ran clear and cool.

With a sigh, revelling in the refreshingly cold water, he wriggled the dial like Dean had told him until the shower stopped. He wrapped himself in a towel, enjoying using the correct terms for the things Dean had showed him. The fluffy fabric felt soft on his smarting skin.

A touch of doubt dropped into his mind as he made use of the toilet and turned back to the sink, washing his hands carefully and refilling the sink to _shave._

He understood that Dean had promised he would talk to him, when he returned, about the war, about the menenth, about the tak. But, Dean was a police _officer._ The police put bad people in cells, they _imprisoned_ them.

As Castiel fumbled with the scissors that Dean had told him to use, he wondered what that made him, if he had been born in a cell, to a mother who had been born in a cell too. Doubly damned, he supposed.

He sniggered at the strange foam in a metal tube that was meant to ease shaving, he didn't really understand why, never having shaved before. A menenth slave usually hacked at his beard once a season when he was chained fast to the bars of the cage. He prefered it short, because it was harder for the alpha, or any of the others, to pull his head around while they pounded into him, hurting his neck too—he bit his lip, banishing the thought.

As he very slowly, and very carefully dragged the sharp blade down his cheek, concentrating far too hard on his actions to take in his whole reflection, he wondered if he really ought to trust Dean to warn the king or the leader of this world about the coming war. The angels and the demons had been shuffling from one world to another for more than five generations. All they wanted was revenge on the place and the people who made the Bridge, the neutral planet that, even now, with the iron chains, still drew the more powerful tumbling through the void, spitting them into the terrifying place where the ground was hard and the world was hemmed in by white walls which nearly obliterated the sky.

Castiel rinsed his face clean, and wondered if those rumors were actually faithful reports by the survivors. If their muddled descriptions were actually this Complex that Dean had mentioned surrounded the Bridge on this world.

He looked up and stared blankly at the person in the glass.

He had occasionally seen fleeting and distorted glimpses of his reflection; cell bars, glass bottles, knife blades. He had never wanted to look closer—to see the image that was himself, the captive, the prisoner, the slave, the victim. Pale skin, dark hair and beard. That was the extent of the knowledge of himself. He knew his body—what he could see of himself, but beyond that?

He stared, blinking slowly at the face that was, and was not, his. He did not associate himself with the face. He was built proud and fierce, strong and resilient. He knew he would look like the humans, but he was not prepared for the softness. Under the grazes and bruising, the nicks from the razor and the red, angry stubble where his beard had sat, his skin was soft and clear. His eyes were large, yet hooded, wide and open, where he felt closed and hidden. His jaw was wide and angular, his cheeks sunken with sharp bones, all covered in gentle looking, easily damaged skin.

He looked nothing like his captors, with their bone-like wings protruding solidly from their backs, their wide glowing halos hanging above their heads and pulsing softly with Grace. They had forceful arms, protected with more bone at the knuckles, and four lower limbs ending in glowing points, moving on invisible feet, giving the impression of floating. Their faces were bony like their wings, and nothing like his own newly revealed one. Their eyes sat behind the bone-like mask, glowing from deep within, closer to the way Castiel had believed he should look than his own true face.

He noted the gray smears under his eyes marring his scrubbed, pink skin, merging with the bruising from the graze on his face. His blue eyes were bloodshot and heavy looking. He tried to _see_ his wings, but they were too well hidden. After his flights, the expenditure of his too-tired Grace, he didn't have the power to bring them into a place that he could _see_ them, let alone manifest them completely. The reflex to keep them hidden was too ingrained, too, after something nearing one hundred and twenty seasons. Too strong was the habit of keeping his Grace invisible.

Of course, that was why the menenth had imprisoned the hath in the first place; their disgust over the fact that the hath’s Grace was hidden, was not on show to see. The menenth were repulsed by the seeming lack. So they punished and used the hath, until there were almost none left. Until Castiel was the _only_ one left.

He chuckled darkly as he wondered how the menenth would react when they finally discovered that the humans truly had no Grace nor Wroth within them. When survivors from the Bridge finally tumbled back to their home planet, reports of the Graceless and Wrothless humans were just put down to the insanity the Bridge caused, to the injuries it inflicted. It was simply not believed that a creature could have no such power within them.

Castiel gave himself a last, long stare, trying to link the vision of him—his face—with the feeling; the knowledge of himself, his personality, his Grace, his soul, his purpose. Blinking slowly and shaking his head a little, he stepped back into the main room of Dean's dwelling, doubt beginning to gnaw at his insides.

He wondered what Dean had been so insistent that he be clean for, and he eyed the bed in fear, where fresh clothes had been placed. He could not pretend it did not feel amazing to be clean, though. He snatched up the clothing, pulling it on, and revelled once again in the textures against his skin, where he had only ever felt metal bars or invasive touches before—at least, not since his brother had been taken.

Wrapping his arms around himself he suddenly felt at a loss as to what he was meant to do. He turned to look at the pictures on the wall that had caught his attention earlier. His face felt cold without the beard filling out his cheeks, his body was warmed through and loose, he was still, always, hungry, and he needed to warn these stupid humans that a mass of angels and demons were coming to the Earth.

He had managed to escape just as the menenth were nearing their last few steps, the last of the worlds that needed their iron linked chain in order to cross the Bridge. They had intelligence from their Bridge-fodder that the next planet they would have stepped onto was linked to every single one that followed it, on both sides, to the Neutral planet; the Earth. The alpha had believed that, should the armies make it through to the next world, all they would have to do was step right back in and they could skip the next planets entirely. They could jump straight across to the world that had started it all. They could have their revenge. Revenge and control. It was an unspoken expectation that once the menenth had the Earth, they would be able to continue their occupation of every world that fought them, every world they enslaved, every world who fought _for_ them, every world the humans had taken as their own and every world the tak believed they had conquered too.

Castiel knew the hath were not the only species the menenth would be pleased to end inside of their cages or mines.

Castiel stopped staring at the pictures on the wall of Dean's home. Many had smiling faces of humans within, but it was the one of a grinning Dean and the police officer who had almost stopped them while they left the precinct that galvanised his will.

He had warn the humans _now._ Or it would not simply be this world that was destroyed. There would be no more smiling humans. There would be no more smiling anyone.

It took mere moments for Castiel to work out how to feed the fluffy bread into the heating machine, like he had seen Dean do, and clumsily smear butter on it with a spoon he found in the _sink_. He idly wondered, while he bit deeply into the first of the stolen food, why a home needed two sinks. He had never known one in a dwelling before, let alone clean or hot running water. He felt awed at the Human's ingenuity even as he felt the lingering horror of what that ingenuity had caused.

He placed more bread in the heater while he searched the apartment for the hard foot coverings Dean had worn. He hadn't much liked the feeling of wet _socks_ on his feet.

He eventually found a pair at the same time the toast was done. He prioritised his belly over his feet and shoved the food in his mouth, wondering if there was anything he could take with him. He knew that on other worlds, natives or foragers could harvest wild or cultivated food, and hunters could take down animals, but Castiel had not seen anything living in this world of water and gray hardness, other than people. He wasn't sure how long he would have to go without food once he left in search of— _Of what?_ he suddenly wondered.

He gave up searching for more food in favour of knotting the strings of the foot coverings so that they couldn't fall off. They were different to the ones Dean had worn, spongy in places and hard in others, colored pale gray and blue and cutting off at the ankle. They were a little too small and pinched as he stepped.

As he resumed his search for food, he started planning. Dean had mentioned the Complex, and if it did tally with the reports of the all but wingless slaves the menenth sent through the Bridge, then that was the epicentre. Surely the humans would keep their leader there? And, if not, he could warn the keepers of the Bridge to be on guard, be alert to the army. Perhaps humans had an army too?

He clutched the pieces of buttery toast to him and looked about the apartment sadly, wishing that he believed Dean would help him. He wanted to stay, to talk to the kind police officer, but he had to warn the humans, and he had to warn them now, not wait, not potentially be put back in a cell where he undoubtedly belonged.

Taking a final look at an image of a younger Dean smiling softly out at him, he turned and walked out the door. He left the building and strode down the street outside of Dean's apartment, ducking under every piece of cover he could find. He twisted his face in confusion, thinking that, for a race so capable of building and ingenuity, that they would have thought of covered paths to protect from the incessant rain.

-

After sleepless days and longer nights spent searching for the missing Castiel, the last thing Dean wanted or needed was this—yet he ducked forward and fired his taser into the last standing… _person_. At this point he wasn't even sure what the fuck he, Benny, and three other teams of police officers, were fighting. It was a group of three species that none of them had ever seen before.

The massive, hulking creature toppled slowly to the ground, letting out a surprisingly high pitched groan as it joined its brethren on the wet ground.

Benny slapped him on the back, sporting a grin, a bloody nose and a blossoming black eye. The eight of them had managed to take down the five off-worlders who had refused the standard identity and permit checks that third class officers did on a regular basis. All off-worlders accepted the inconvenience. It was a part of applying for citizenship and getting the permit. It was the only way to keep tabs on the influx of off-worlders, as so many angels and demons were capable of flight. The Complex, sadly, couldn't contain every person who jumped through from any one of the hundreds of presumed planets out there. Only the first twenty worlds to blue- and red- were controlled by the Complex and the sister buildings built around the Bridge on each of those planets. Those worlds had agreed to, and adhered to the Accord, unless they were empty, in which case, humans had colonized, taking advantage of unspoiled worlds, abundant with natural resources, clean air and plant life. The Complex was gearing up toward creating a tourist trade for the short term, and planning the release of control of Earth entirely in the long term, having given up on the rain and cold, the dark skies, lack of food, too few people, poor education, mass unemployment but with thousands of unfulfilled job positions. The world was a mess. The Government no longer cared, and the Councils struggled to improve things alone.

“Let's get these bastards loaded up, huh brother?” Dean nodded, wiping gingerly at his cut eyebrow, and moving toward the van that the third backup pair of officers to arrive had turned up in. He and an officer he vaguely recognized grabbed the stretcher that was kept hooked behind the metal caged seating, and between them they hauled it toward the five off-worlders, piled in a bruised and groaning heap on the floor.

Dean concentrated on maneuvering the unwieldy board next to the largest of the fallen. As he crouched behind their head to lift them from the shoulders he finally took in what the other man was saying under his breath.

“Did you just say ‘You've been Garthed’?” he asked the gangly police officer, incredulously.

The man looked up at him, all wide honest eyes and a grin splitting his face. “Hell yeah!” he answered happily. Dean just shook his head, wondering how such a chipper person could survive third class policing for as long as this man had. He had been knocking around the precinct as long as Dean.

Despite the other man's scrawny frame, Dean knew he could pack a punch, and between them they had no problem moving the stirring bodies onto the stretchers and transferring them to the van. They had all five locked up within ten minutes, and Dean banged on the side of the van to let the driver know he was good to go.

Benny caught his eye and Dean nodded. They had to get back to the precinct and file the reports, and, more than likely, sit in on the questioning that the boss would do. Third class officers rarely got the fun of interrogation, especially when it came to species no one had seen before. Dean, though, was mostly just pleased that he, Benny and the others had come away with only minor injuries, and that they’d not had to use unnecessary force to take the uncooperative off-worlders down.

Dean and Benny walked back to where they had left their police issue car, tiny, economic in its use of metals, even more economic in its use of plastics, and filled with the terrifying Anti-Matter cell. He shuddered dramatically in disgust as he slipped into the passenger seat, letting Benny have the wheel. “Some fight, huh?” Benny asked, cuffing at his bloody nose.

“Yeah, man,” Dean answered, kneading his shoulder as he leaned back in the hard seat, “I could barely understand what they were sayin', I don't envy the Boss his interviews tonight.”

Benny grunted in agreement. As unknown species, they had to be from non-Accord worlds, which often meant their language would be harsh on human ears until someone found the root language. Many, as they were slap bang in the middle of the continent, were formed from the Native American population, on whichever world they came from. Some, like on Earth, had another main language, such as English, Dutch or Spanish. Only one world so far, the nineteenth degree Blue, had a completely original language. What linguists still existed on Earth had had a field day, and travelled in from all over to study and learn before hopping in the Bridge and all leaving for the Kyaalmya's planet. That had been about fifteen years ago. The Government had only moved one more step to the twentieth, both blue- and redwards before halting the expansion. Not permanently, but to reassess and strengthen, both the Accord with the other planets and the colonists on the empty worlds.

Dean fretted that the interviews would take all night. It was close to three now; he was meant to be off in an hour, but with five uncooperative off-worlders, he figured he would be required to stay and document the interviews. At least find out how they got through the Complex without being halted at all by the miles of white walls, the Army, the Police, the Gates, or locks.

The main failing of the Complex, and of the Bridge, was that it was enormous, and therefore humans had yet to devise a method to box the Bridge in entirely. A roof spanning a circle twenty miles across would be no mean feat, and there was simply not enough manpower or materials, even if the technology was there. So, on a fairly frequent basis, Dean and his colleagues picked up unregistered off-worlders with impressive wing spans.

Dean idly wondered how the Complex and the Government dealt with the miles and miles of empty land, full of newly grown, anemic-looking forests, stunted farmland and rubble, because it was certain that not all off-worlders flocked to the only city within flight distance.

Bobby had certainly picked up a few. They were usually confused, with no idea what had happened—it seemed that if you used the Bridge without the safeguards that the Complex had somehow created, the ride was more than bumpy. It was violent. Bobby’d had to 'put down' a few of the more injured off-worlders; wings snapped, heads crushed, minds unravelled… It wasn't pretty.

His thoughts returned, with a groan, to the fear that he would be stuck in the precinct all night, filling out forms and trying to make sense of the guttural grunts and growls that the newcomers made. He wanted to get back on the streets, as he had done every night since Castiel had left.

That hollow feeling welled up inside of him again, the feeling of defeat, of having let someone down.

He cursed and blamed himself for not having taken a moment to ask what Castiel had been so worried about, what war it was that was supposedly coming. Maybe he could have calmed his fears, maybe he could have placated him and comforted him. Maybe he could have shown him that it was probably just the mad and terrible people who had held him captive, who had raped him and left him, bloody, to die in the street.

He had been looking through files and leads and open cases in his spare time in the precinct too, hoping for an indication as to where Castiel had escaped from— or been chased from, he just wasn't sure. But there was nothing, no commune, no religious group, no other strange, heavily accented, naked men turning up. He was at a loss, and so, once he finished work, he picked another part of the city and either walked or drove, trawling the streets. He was looking for a man wearing his clothes, in his sneakers, with a dark mop of hair, and a badly shaved, heavily stubbled face, if the blood splatters and hair left in his sink were any indication.

Being forced into overtime ruined his chance of a sleep after a few hours searching for the man that he felt was now his responsibility, the man that he had failed.

Benny knew that Dean was worried. Dean’s friend did not share his fears, did not understand, and had gently mocked him until Dean had lost his shit and yelled at his friend for being an ass. Benny had backed down, realising that Dean felt his duty was to the wounded man, and he had apologised.

He looked over at Dean now, as they pulled into the parking lot alongside the other Officers' vehicles. “Don't worry brother, I'll do my best to make sure you're out on time.” Dean smiled tiredly at him, wondering, not for the first time, if Benny just thought him insane.

He just nodded his thanks and hauled himself into the precinct after his friend.

-

“Well. I'd say they're insane. I think the Bridge got to them,” Sergeant Walker announced as he stepped from the interview room with the last of the angels. Dean shook his head. It was quarter of five in the morning, and he was itching to leave.

“Stupid assholes keep going on about an invasion for heaven's sake! They keep tryin' to taunt us.” Gorden sniggered, although the linguist on staff, Ms. Bradbury, looked serious and concerned.

Dean's head snapped up at Walker's words. _An invasion?_ He looked at Benny. He hadn’t shared everything that Castiel had told him with his friend. Up until that moment he’d believed that Castiel had probably been fed false information or that his captors were insane, rather than Castiel making it up. He had not really, _truly_ believed that Castiel might be telling the truth in the way that Dean would see it…

He had not taken Castiel seriously.

“Shit,” he swore viciously under his breath. “I need to go, _now_ , Benny,” he said quietly, determined to redouble his efforts. He would search again until dawn and then the next day, he would put out a warrant with the man's description. He needed to speak to Castiel. Now.

-

Castiel, in a fit of frustrated anger, yelled to the black sky, an inarticulate wail of impotency and annoyance as he smashed his fist into the metal door he was leaning his forehead against, hidden from the rain by the tiniest of overhangs above him.

Tears ran down his face, mingling with the rain, and a shudder of cold met the shudder of pain rising up his arms.

He had never learned swear words in the hath's language, and the American tongue's words didn't have the same wrath behind them. He swore fluently and at length in the menenth's native tongue, hissing and spitting the satisfying sounds out at volume, cursing the humans’ complete lack of desire to help themselves, the disgust they could hold for someone who should be seen as one of their own. Even fellow vagrants only shook their heads, refusing to talk or help.

He spat on the ground, like the menenth slaves did in derision of their alpha, to show his disgust for this planet and every forsaken inhabitant of it.

Gabriel would have been disgusted with him, had he lived, had he still been with his forty-season younger brother.

Another hot tear over flowed his blurry vision, clearing it for a moment, allowing him to see the red and blue reflection of flashing lights that signified another police car.

He slumped in defeat.

_He_ had been the only human who had given him the merest hint of interest in his pleas to help this terrible planet.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean rubbed furiously at his face and decided to call it a night. He had driven to every location on the South side of the city that he could possibly imagine Castiel going to look for help. He’d even contemplated calling his brother and asking if Castiel had made it to the Complex. At that point reality had hit, brutally, as he realized that no one could walk that distance; it would take at least a week, if not longer. And no one, absolutely no one, picked up vagrants on the side of the road.

He started the Impala, already thinking ahead to the next morning when he could start looking around the shelters and in what remained of the churches. He revved the engine and pulled out, driving home through the fat, heavy rain drops and icy wind.

Dean stepped out of the car in the dryness of his garage and flopped forward, resting his forehead against the dimly glowing arch of the roof.

Rather than return home before heading out to look for Castiel, Dean had begun his search straight from work. He’d spent the afternoon before work trawling the secondnet looking for any references on the news sites to Castiel. Dean knew he ought to begin looking for reports of invasions and wars, unusual angels and demons too, now that Gordon-bloody-Walker had laughed off the threat, just as he himself had originally done with Cas. The guilt stuck yet another claw in his belly, twisting. “Shit,” he cursed, hating himself for writing off the man's worries.

He sighed, knowing that bitching and moaning wasn't going to help, and slammed the door of the car shut—apologizing to his Baby before hauling on the garage door to close it against the rain.

He shivered, yawning hugely as he walked around the corner of the building, head tucked into his chest against the downpour. The rain was only getting heavier as the dawn broke, making the black night look slightly sick in tones of gray, green and orange. He looked up to glare at the oddly colored, flickering street lamp, wondering how LED bulbs could fatigue and turn green, even if they _were_ practically ancient—and stopped mid-stride, his foot hanging stupidly in the air.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath, catching sight of the hunched figure on the steps to his apartment's main door. A twist in his gut was the only indication he needed to _know_ that this was Castiel. “Cas?” he asked aloud, his voice carrying through the sound of the rain, hesitant and uneasy. The hunched figure didn't look up, its head obscured completely by a hood pulled low, the clothes so darkened with rain that Dean couldn't be certain they were even his own—but somehow he knew that this was his man.

He ran the three or four paces to the steps, and simply fell to his knees before Castiel, who sat on the third step up. He could look up under the hood from that angle, non-threatening, lower, vulnerable. He needed Cas to trust him this time. He wanted to help. _Needed_ to.

He blew out a breath when he saw the man's face, relief coursing through him as he realized it was indeed Castiel. Half a second later a healthy dose of electricity shot through his belly straight to his groin at the sight of the man's darkly stubbled face; all angular lines and a sharp jaw, all but unrecognizable from the bearded, worn out and broken man from before. “Fuck, man—” He swallowed and tried to continue but found he didn't have words to tell Castiel how relieved he felt, how pleased, how guilty, how sorry. He simply leaned up and wrapped his arms around the pinched looking, quaking and shivering man.

Castiel's entire body went taut, and Dean remembered, too late, his hypothesis that the man had been kept a prisoner, that he may have been tortured. He’d even forgotten the evidence he’d seen with his own two eyes, that the man had been raped, in his relief at discovering Castiel’s return. Physically touching him probably wasn't the best of ideas, but, he figured, he couldn’t undo it now, so he held on, no force behind the hug, simply holding the other man against him.

The hug went on too long, but Dean stayed there, biting his lip, trying not to cry or laugh at the mix of emotion he felt at finally having another chance to help this near stranger. This man who was finally relaxing, still silent, his arms still wrapped around his own torso; but Dean could feel his shoulders lowering incrementally, his breath no longer stuttering in his chest.

Dean gave him a brief squeeze before peeling his arms away. He rocked back on his knees, ducking his head to make eye contact. Castiel's face was mostly in shadow, the merest sliver of blue on show under his furrowed brows. “Hello Dean,” he said, hoarse and gravelly, the exhaustion plain.

“Let's get you inside, huh?” Dean asked, although it wasn't a question. He was already pulling Castiel to his wobbly feet.

By the time he had helped the freezing and soaked man into his apartment, Dean had decided on a course of action. Being restrained and patient had resulted in Castiel leaving him twice already. Communication and a direct approach seemed to be his last remaining option. He bit his lip against the discomfort he felt already settling in his gut at the thought.

He dropped his arm from the shivering man's back the moment they were in the door and he was sure that Castiel's balance was good enough for him to remain standing. Giving the man a chance to see what he was doing, Dean reached up and pulled the sodden hood from Cas’ head. He ducked low to force him to make eye contact, and the thought crossed his mind, for the second time in ten minutes, that he was beautiful. His eyes, ethereal as they had been before, now stood out, accusing, terrified, stubborn and frightening all at once. They were bright and bloodshot against the pale skin of his cheeks. His cheekbones were high, his jaw strong. His lips suddenly stood out, too—without the halo of dark beard surrounding them, they were wide and generous, dried and chapped despite the constant rain.

That thought snapped him out of his thoughts and reminded him what his mission was. “Shower. Now,” he said, snapping the other man's dazed attention back to his own  face. “But first,” and he turned toward the kitchen, “you need to drink. You look, well, fucked.” He poured a tall glass and handed it to Castiel, whose eyes widened and, still without a word, he downed the entire glass.

“Thank you,” Castiel rasped, looking at the empty glass mournfully. Dean dutifully poured a second glass and handed it across with a slight chuckle, watching as he drink it all once again.

“Go use the shower man, you can drink more afterwards. Get clean and warm. I'll find ya some _more_ clothes okay? And then I wanna talk to you, alright?”

Castiel looked at him, solid, stoic, shoulders square despite the shivers still wracking his body. “And I you, Dean.” Cas nodded at Dean, and then edged toward the bathroom.

Dean heard the lock slide slowly across, and he smiled a little, remembering the first time he had nudged Castiel inside; his bewildered expression, the amazement at the concept of being allowed to lock _himself_ inside, of Dean being unable to get to him.

He shook his head in sorrow before pulling himself back together again. He had a mission to accomplish, and a tightly constricted chest, filled with happiness and terrible sorrow, would not actually help Castiel.

He placed a pan of gray-brown stew on his stove and set it to warm slowly while he cut bread into thick slices. Yet again he dug through his things looking for clothes that Castiel could wear. He ended up pulling out the same jeans that Castiel had discarded the last time he had showered, then fled. He found a long sleeved t-shirt and fresh underwear from his drawers too.

Finally he cranked up the heat and sat on the two seater couch, staring off to the side through the glazed wall, watching the raindrops splatter against the glass in the dark gray dawn. They slid slowly down, dragging ancient ash, grit and grime along with them.

He slid with them, drifting to thoughts of his mother, her warmth, the amazing aroma their home had always seemed to hold. Despite the weather being worse back when he was a child—the food even more scarce—their home had always smelled of roasting meat and baking pies. He’d wondered on a regular basis as a kid how his parents had managed to acquire such food, but when he joined the force, trying valiantly to follow in his father’s footsteps, he’d discovered that John had used the privileges of rank to get his hands on meat and fresh milk and the more expensive, sought after items. It had put a new light on a massive argument he remembered witnessing between his parents, which resulted soon after, in a dearth of rich tasty warm foods, and a surplus of root vegetables all tasting of ash.

That had only been a few short years before his mother had been killed, and after that, John had done little to care for his kids, let alone intimidate his way to better food for them all. After that moment, the only fresh meat he got was straight from slaughter on Bobby's farm. Still a rarity, scrawny chickens, too old to lay, were still considered a treat.

Dean started from his thoughts at the sound of the door to the bathroom opening, turning to see it letting out billowing clouds of steam, and a very pink Castiel wrapped tightly and defiantly in a towel. There was a slightly hesitant look on his face and his knuckles were white where they clutched the towel to his waist.

“My—” he swallowed convulsively. “My clothes are wet and cold,” he stated, glaring daringly at Dean.

Dean felt his cheeks heat up at the sight of Castiel's naked torso. He swallowed thickly before nodding at the bed. The man's eyes went wide and he flinched backward into the safety of the bathroom before Dean could unstick his mouth to speak. “They're on the bed, man,” he managed to say before Castiel could slam the door protectively.

He watched as Castiel looked slowly between him, lying back on the couch, and the bed, a few meters away. He was clearly calculating speeds and distance, and how likely he would be to get away if Dean decided to tackle him. To put the man at ease, Dean raised his feet on to the arm of the small sofa, and relaxed back, his arms behind his head. “Take your time, food will be ready when you are, okay?”

The man's startled blue eyes seemed to calm as his shoulders dropped a little. He darted forward with surprising speed, grabbing up the small pile of clothing and disappeared back into the steamy bathroom. Dean smiled a little sadly and threw himself off the sofa, going in search of some liquor. The stuff was hideously expensive, and pretty damn awful if he admitted it to himself, but sometimes a little hard whiskey was needed.

He poured a tiny measure into the bottom of a crystal glass he had found hidden deep inside a ruined building, miraculously unbroken, when he was fourteen. He’d kept it and treasured it ever since. He liked to think it was hundreds of years old, and if people still cared for old things that were of little use, then it would have been worth a lot of money. As it was, the glittering, cut glass tumbler was only useful for drinking things out of.

He sipped the warming liquid, rolling it across his tongue until the back of his nose tickled. Leaning his elbows on the small kitchen counter, he savoured the drink until Castiel reemerged from the bathroom. He swallowed the final drops and turned to the man he couldn't help but feel pleased to have back in his home.

He had a smudge of white foam in the corner of his mouth, and was still sporting the stubble he had gone in with. He was skinny, pale, tired and still wounded, his ear a mangled mess where the cartilage should have been. He also had an expression of steel, a will of iron, and a stubbornness to match Dean’s own.

Dean smiled widely at him.

“Sit down on the couch, I'll grab you some food okay?” Castiel eyed him for a moment, as he placed the tumbler far back on the counter against the wall.

“Okay Dean,” he agreed quietly before he walked hesitantly toward the couch. He groaned in pleasure as he lowered himself to the soft cushions and folded blankets, covering the broken springs.

Dean precariously balanced the bread, two bowls of stew and spoons in his arms and walked toward the other man. He handed Cas a bowl, then sat down beside him. There wasn't much room between their bodies, but he squeezed the plate of bread onto the sofa between their knees; not only to make it easier to share, but so that there was a divide between him and the hurt, abused man.

“Dig in, Cas,” he grinned. Castiel frowned in confusion until he saw Dean start to spoon the steaming hot stew into his mouth, dipping in bread between mouthfuls.

Dean swore—silently—to himself, that the man almost smiled at his terrible table manners.

There was silence for a long moment, only filled by the scraping of spoons over chipped china and slurping from Dean. Finally, after second helpings for them both, and a third bowl for Castiel, there were only the grunts of satisfaction as they both lay back on the sofa holding their distended bellies.

Dean chuckled at Castiel's blissed out expression. He looked relaxed and comfortable as he looked up at Dean, his blue eyes contrasting with the flush of pink his cheeks had finally taken on. Dean smiled with satisfaction that the warmth and food he’d provided had done that.

“I am sorry Dean,” Castiel finally croaked out, after matching Dean’s gaze. His voice was less rasping, but just as deep as it had been, accented just as strangely.

Dean sat up straighter, twisting and frowning down at Castiel. “What for?”

Castiel pulled his mouth to one side before answering, seeming to close in on himself. “I stole food and water and foot coverings. I am sorry.”

Dean snorted, slumping back onto the couch cushions. “Fuck the shoes and food 'n stuff, man! I'd rather you were sorry for running out on me!” He smiled to soften his words, causing a look of pure bewilderment to cross the other man's face.

“You are annoyed that I left, but not that I stole?”

Dean sighed, trying to word things in a way the man would understand, his imprisonment or seclusion probably affecting his grasp of modern Native. “I'm not annoyed. I wanted to help you, but you didn't give me a chance. So, I suppose I'm, I dunno, hurt? Like, upset? But yeah, I don't care about the other stuff. You can help yourself to whatever you need.”

Castiel just looked blank, almost as if he couldn't really comprehend what Dean was saying. He sat there, face vacant, still holding his flat belly as if he had never been full before, staring at the wall past Dean’s head, where his collection of photographs hung.

Dean decided to wait—it looked as if the man was processing—he figured he deserved a little time.

He got up and cleared the bowls from their dinner, eyeing the lightening sky beyond the rain lashed window. It was nearing dawn, and he was conscious that he ought to try and sleep— But, what was one more too-long day? Why change the habit of a lifetime?

He turned back to face the man sitting on his couch, still gazing at the wall. He truly was breathtaking to look at; his hair drying in the warmth into a wild mess of spikes, all different lengths. Dean's clothes swamped him, baggy on his hungry-looking frame. Even his mangled ear and the prominent graze across his cheek didn't detract from Dean’s impression of the man, adding ‘badass’ to the list of properties that made it difficult for Dean to tear his eyes from him.

It was wrong of him to think that way, but he couldn't help it, he liked a man who could just shake off a punch to the face, or in this case—a fall to the ground after he was—

His unfinished thought sobered him, like a dousing in a winter rainstorm.

With a shiver, he squared his shoulders and took a breath. “So, I was looking for you,” he began, forcibly changing the direction of his thoughts, as he tried to drag Castiel back from wherever he’d gone mentally too. “When you left here, I tried to find you.”

The man stared at him a moment, blinking slowly until his eyes seemed to focus. “I—I didn't think you actually meant to help.” He shrugged a little apologetically, “You are a police officer. You told me the Police lock people up. I do not wish to be locked up again.”

Dean strode back across the room and knelt on the floor in front of Castiel. He wanted to take his hands, but held back, not wanting to crowd the man. “I've already told you Cas, I will never lock you up. You are free.” He smiled softly up at the man's intent expression. “I mean, I'd like you to choose to stay with me, uh, here—safe,” he grimaced and shrugged, “but you are always free to go.” He caught his own breath on his next exhale, realising how true the throwaway statement rang for him.

He did want Castiel to stay.

With him.

The loaded sentence hanging in the air between them seemed to completely escape Castiel's notice. Dean found himself able to breathe again as Cas pushed himself up slightly on the sofa. “I need to war—”

“You need to warn, yes. I need to talk to you about that too. Honestly. But—” and Dean wriggled where he sat on the floor, not wanting to get down to business so fast. He wanted to take a moment to make this man feel appreciated, cared for. “But, will you let me take a look at some of those wounds for you first? I want to check they're healing okay.”

Castiel frowned and looked down at himself, as if his ripped skin would be visible through Dean's t-shirt. Dean breathed out in relief as Castiel inclined his head in silent agreement, even though his expression had lost none of the ferocity of his desperation.

Dean jumped up from the floor, glad to be given permission to help. His abrupt movement caused Castiel to flinch back, and Dean paused to apologize before turning back to the bathroom. He collected the meager bandages and rubbing alcohol he had stowed in the back of the cupboard, almost expecting Castiel to be gone when he turned back to the couch.

He decided to ignore the flutter of relief in his gut as he found Castiel still sitting on his couch, looking discomforted and anxious.

“Sit up on the chair, man. It'll be easier for me to check you out.” He rolled his eyes at the double meaning, but hoped it would go right over Castiel's head—like so many of his words did. He put the medical things on the table as Castiel heaved himself back out of the sofa, a grunt of dissatisfaction leaving him with a scowl. Dean smiled at the grouchy man a little. “You want coffee or anything before I get started?”

Castiel just looked up at him blankly. “Erm, it's a black dri- Ugh, you know what, never mind. Just… give me a minute.”

Dean dug into his precious store of expensive luxury items, thinking that if anyone deserved them, Castiel probably did. He poured out water first, and turned the stove back on, busying himself—all the while, feeling Castiel's eyes boring into his back. It took him a few long minutes, but when he turned back around, Castiel was sniffing the air appreciatively, an anticipatory look in his eye. Dean placed the mugs on the table and told Castiel to wait a moment as it was hot. Dried milk was easier to get hold of than fresh, but still difficult to find sometimes. Chocolate was in the realms of whiskey for expense. Nonetheless, in front of the two of them were hot chocolates, each with a dash of whiskey.

Dean picked up some some of the soft, clean rags and soaked them in the rubbing alcohol before he perched on the arm of the sofa so he could get close enough to Castiel's cheek. Castiel's attention kept wandering to the hot chocolate, and he laughed, giving up for the moment, letting Cas take a sip. The wide eyed wonderment on his face was more than worth it.

“Wuh-” was his articulate response, which made Dean snigger.

“Wow, I think is the word you're lookin' for there my friend,” he answered jovially. “Brace yourself,” he muttered, before swiping the soft fabric over Castiel's grazed cheek. The man flinched, but otherwise made no response except to sip more of the hot chocolate.

Dean's smile grew; he couldn't help it. The dude was badass.

Castiel's eyes flicked back to Dean's face, watching him as he paused, adding more alcohol to the blood stained, gritty cloth. He was caught by the man’s gaze. “What?” Castiel asked, all gravel voice and chocolate breath.

Dean bit his lip to stop from laughing. “Sorry, you're just— No, never mind. You want me to take a look at those other scabs? You did a pretty good job getting the gravel out, but I'd like to check if that's cool?” The man frowned on the last word, but shrugged and stood, lifting the shirt and pulling down the jeans and boxers just enough to reveal the grazed hip bone and the thickening hair leading down the crease of his hip.

Dean said nothing and focused on the wound. It's not like he hadn't seen the guy completely naked already— But somehow it was different now.

_Now,_ he _kind of_ had feelings for the guy. He was strong, stronger than Dean could ever hope to be. And determined, robust, but childlike—like when he sipped hot chocolate from a mug, and had the thick stuff stuck to his top lip.

Dean spent the next fifteen minutes carefully digging and prying out tiny pieces of asphalt from the rest of the man's wounds, carefully avoiding the lacerations on the man's lower back, ass and thighs. He was not qualified to deal with that kind of thing, and would take the man to the hospital before he went to work. Although Dean had to admit with surprise that, as the man took his seat again, he showed no discomfort at putting his weight on the wounds.

He took a fortifying mouthful of his own hot chocolate before getting Castiel to turn so that he could deal with he mangled remains of his ear. “Jeez, what the hell happened here?” he muttered, as he finally got a close look at the ruined cartilage.

The man's head twitched in an aborted shrug as Dean's fingers hovered over the gaping hole where the ear was supposed to form a complete shell. There was still dried blood sticking to the remains of the lobe and pooling in the bottom part where Castiel had clearly not tried to clean the wound. He wasn’t surprised, it looked astonishingly painful.

“Something was ripped out,” Castiel finally stated, which Dean could damn well see, but he only nodded.

“Okay, okay,” he began soothingly, and mindlessly ran his fingers through the hair at the back of the man's head, like he used to do with Sam when he was a child and had hurt himself. “This is gonna hurt like a bitch, Cas. But I gotta clean it up—it's already infected.” He could see the yellow stuff sticking to the edges of the wound and the angry red color to the puffy skin of the whole ear and some of the surrounding flesh.

Castiel nodded, his eyes closed and a soft expression on his face. “Just do it,” he answered, letting Dean's hand at the back of his head take the weight as his neck muscles relaxed. Dean smiled and huffed out a laugh at the man's behaviour. He was like a cat—well, like cats were supposed to be, if anyone kept them as pets any more.

Spreading his fingers in Castiel's glossy dark hair, the gray early morning light picking out red-brown highlights in the mess, he angled the man's head so he could see what was left of his ear.

It almost looked as if something had taken a bite out of it, except that the outer edges of the lobe hadn't been completely removed. He could almost push them back in to create a circle, just leaving the back part of the ear missing. He started dabbing at the sticky mess with a fresh piece of alcohol soaked material, ignoring Castiel's silent flinching with a certain degree of awe. If it were him, he was certain that he would be at least gritting his teeth. Apart from a tiny frown sitting between his closed eyes, Castiel looked at peace.

“There,” he stated when he had it as clean as possible. The wound was old enough by now for no fresh blood to well up, despite Dean's coaxing away of the hardened pus and blood. Castiel's eyes fluttered open as Dean gently pushed his head back into a comfortable position for him to be able to move away. “I'm just gonna bandage it okay?”

Castiel nodded, a dazed smile on his face, and Dean moved back to the bathroom to get more of the material he could use as bandages. It wouldn't last long without the adhesive bandages that cost a fortune, but hopefully it would last long enough for the wound to close over properly, without getting re-infected.

“We'll need to keep it clean when these bandages come off, but this'll do for now.” he said softly as he tilted Castiel's head back again, this time pulling his hand back as he needed them both to wrap his ear, carefully trying to bolster the edges of the cartilage so they sat close to where they were meant to.

Castiel merely hummed in acknowledgement, the tiny smile on his face once again.

“I didn't expect you to find that so pleasant, Cas.” Dean finally said, almost a whisper, not wanting to disturb the man's peace where he swayed in his seat. He crouched down in front of Castiel when he was done, pleased with his handy work, hoping that both of them were in a place now to discuss the warnings that Castiel had been voicing.

Castiel's eyes drifted open to pin Dean. “It was nice to be touched softly,” he stated, a hard edge souring his soft voice, his gaze became steadily more calculating, the blue becoming flinty. Dean watched as Castiel's face closed up a little, his jaw stiffened, and he tilted his head slightly, searching Dean's face intently. “Thank you Dean. You are a kind man.”

“I—” Dean began, but suddenly found Castiel's lips pressing hard against his own.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean stumbled back, his hands up, warding Castiel away—the temptation was intense. He hadn’t realized how strongly he’d begun to feel for the stoic, flighty man.

But that kiss hadn’t been soft, caring—no, it had been violent, desperate.

Dean found himself conflicted, simultaneously wanting to push Castiel far away from him, to protect him, to stop this—this thing. But also desperately wanting to pull him back in, to never let go, to show him how a kiss could really feel.

But it wasn’t right, even Cas’ wild look screamed of fear, of something… else. Something Dean couldn’t place, something broken, unhappy. Dean wanted to hold him, to make him feel safe. He even reached out, an aborted movement—

One he regretted, as Castiel saw, leapt on it, and smashed his face against Dean’s again; a bruising kiss, close mouthed, his eyes drawn down in a determined frown. No happiness, no pleasure, no desire to be seen in his expression at all.

Dean screwed his eyes shut, battling with himself, reminding himself to treat Castiel kindly, even as his teeth scraped across Dean’s lip. He growled his dissatisfaction, needing to show Castiel how to do this right, and terrified at the number of wrongs that were piling up. He barely even knew the man, and a little gentleness shouldn't cause this reaction.

His growl of complaint did nothing to deter Cas, whose hands were scrabbling determinedly at his clothing.

He groaned, this time the noise more of lust and frustration as Castiel dropped to his knees in front of Dean, having given up on his own clothes, his hands limp at his sides, head tilted back— _ready._

Dean felt a little sick at the man’s easy reaction, his complete lack of expression. Just blankness, resignation.

How could he leave him like this? When he wanted the man—when he wanted to look after him, hold him, keep him safe and protected. He didn’t want to take advantage of Castiel, but he did not want that broken expression on his face either. He wanted to see those wide, clear eyes, dark with lust, smiling, without pain, warm and calm. Dean just wanted to make him happy.

Dean dropped to his knees, coming level with Cas, his eyes widening again in fear, confusion. Dean bit his own lip, still entirely uncertain if this was right, if Castiel truly wanted it. But, he thought, he couldn’t allow the man to believe that what he’d done was a kiss.

Keeping his eyes open to watch Castiel’s reaction, and letting go his lip from between his teeth, Dean leaned in and placed a soft, careful, kiss to Castiel’s wide and surprisingly soft lips.

He was lost.

He leaned further into the kiss, gently opening his lips and pressing his tongue against Castiel's still closed mouth. The man startled, flinching back a little, but he opened his mouth, just slightly, to allow Dean access. Dean watched Castiel's face, all angular lines, so near his own. Instead of finding flushed skin and a soft expression, Castiel was frowning hard in concentration, his blue eyes flat, open, hard.

Dean pulled back, meeting those eyes. “Cas?” Castiel startled slightly and knelt up, abruptly pulling off the t-shirt and then rolling to his feet, dropping the jeans and toeing off the socks, all in a matter of moments. It was perfunctory and brutal, and it left Dean cold.

“Cas, Cas, woah.” Dean held up his hands again, trying slow Castiel's momentum, his disinterested expression. At Dean's words, Castiel looked back down to Dean, catching his eyes, his placating pose.

“You—” Castiel began.

“Just come back here,” Dean suggested, his tone soft. He reached out, gently taking the hand of the naked man standing before him. Castiel didn’t even have an erection for heaven’s sake. Dean pulled Castiel back down to the floor to sit next to him. “Hey,” he whispered, ducking his head forward and placing a chaste kiss against Castiel's lips.

-

Castiel was interrupted by Dean before he could complete his sentence. “You—” he hadn't even been sure how he had wanted to finished the sentence though—you don’t want to fuck me? You don’t want this? You don't want me to thank you?

Dean was nice; he had been gentle toward Castiel, had shown him comforts that he had never experienced before—how else was he meant to show that he was grateful? He had almost always been fucked by a guard after being given food, or told to thank his master when he was washed by being pushed down on the bed. The only thing he had was his body.

He took Dean's hand, feeling calluses along his palm and against certain fingers. The sensation was interesting, a marked contrast to the man's lips that had been so very soft, and to the bony and armoured skin of his captors. He sank to his knees again, ignoring the twang in his backside, amused internally because he had never gone so long without being fucked, and the constant pain had almost disappeared.

He was mildly irritated that soon he would get pummelled into all over again, opening the scabbed wounds around his hole. Or, if Dean had a mind to, he could use a weapon or his fingernails, Castiel supposed, as humans didn't have the horny bone like hands that menenth did, and he could slash at the skin of his rear and lower back too.

But he owed Dean thanks, he was worthy of it at least, for showing him warmth and comfort.

“Hey,” Dean whispered, snapping his attention back to the man before him. He was surprised by the softness of the kiss once again. He had been kissed before, sometimes the guards did it, sometimes one of the other slaves, often another menenth when they were brought to him for the Alpha’s amusement, but it was always either closed mouthed and hard, almost painful, or biting and tearing and assuredly painful.

This softness, this tentative exploration, was entirely new. He expected pain, and he got heat and tenderness.

He twisted away from Dean then, rolling onto his knees, presenting his ass to Dean, to do with what he would. He placed his forearms on the edge of the soft seat, his knees taking the hardness from the floor.

“Cas—” he heard Dean choke off, pain and sadness all too obvious in his voice. He turned slightly to look at the man, still fully clothed, a heated and sorrowful expression evident on his face. Castiel didn't understand the human's hesitation. He turned back, facing away from Dean, and tried to enter the place where he took himself away from his body and floated.

But Dean, it seemed had other ideas, ideas that pulled him from the quiet place with a shock.

He felt Dean's body curl around his back side, clearly on his knees, in a position to ram home, but the push never came. Castiel had the odd sensation of Dean's clothes, hard and rough, soft and light, tracing over his skin, from the upper part of his thigh to his lower back. Then he felt the hot trace of fingers, just touching his skin, drawing lines from the base of his neck, down, between his shoulder blades, down to the point where the aching pain from his unpracticed flight stopped. The touch moved back up, around the side of his ribs, then in again, _caressing_ his shoulder blades.

It wasn't the pain that brought tears to his eyes, nor made him bite his lip to prevent a sob from escaping.

He almost sighed with relief when Dean's clothed body pulled away from his naked one. The soft touch was almost too much, too new, too unexpected.

Dean's next action ruined that momentary relief from the unknown though.

Castiel flinched when a strange, hot-warm touch gently pressed against the skin of his butt. Finger tips touched the other cheek, tracing horizontal lines against his skin. Another hot damp press higher up, then another and another, the fingers never leaving his skin until they got closer to his hole, when they started skipping over parts.

Castiel gasped the moment he realized what Dean was actually doing. His fingers were tracing the network of scars he had across his skin there, the jagged lines torn by violent hands, nothing like Dean's gentle touch. The gaps in his caress were where the newest cuts were, the touch careful despite the fact they were all but healed.

The hot press to the other side must be Dean's lips. Leaving a trail of cool spots of dampness in the wake of his kisses. Castiel felt a tear leak through his squeezed closed eyelids.

“I am not putting anything near you there, Castiel,” Dean mumbled, pressing another lightning hot kiss to his torn skin.

He sensed Dean sit up, the cooler air rushing into the gap where he had sat, then he felt Dean's hands against his hips, gently pushing and pulling him up, up and onto the soft seat, to sit down facing Dean. He kept his eyes shut the whole time, too fearful of Dean's softness. He wasn’t worried, exactly, that it would end, but almost more that it would continue.

He heard a soft huff of breath from Dean somewhere above him, then his rough thumb wiped the tear from his cheek. He didn't flinch in response. “I'm glad I can get you going at least a little though, man. But, please, don't cry. I won't hurt you. You gotta tell me if I do.”

Castiel frowned at Dean's words and opened his eyes. The sight before him was breathtaking. Dean was fully naked, his skin soft and pink and flushed. His eyes followed the smattering of golden hair sitting between his nipples, down to his navel, then the golden trail, getting darker and thicker as it turned into hair like Castiel had, sitting around the base of his cock. His eyes skittered away at that point. The human's penis was erect, and the sight scared him, even if his body was similar to Castiel's. He was taller, but softer, flushed and beautiful, rather than the bony, sharp lines the menenth had.

His eyes landed on his own lap, and he jumped in surprise, flinching away from his own body.

His own penis was slightly erect.

He opened his mouth to protest, but found there were no words. He hadn't had an erection since he was a child, since shortly after he hit puberty and Gabriel was taken from him and he had been put to use by his captors.

His mouth fell open and Dean knelt on the floor before him, eyes soft and beautiful. He noticed for the first time that they were green.

“If you— If you won't put anything—” Castiel tried to ask how he could thank Dean, but Dean just grinned up at him and, if Castiel had felt capable, the look in his eye would have sent him running. It was predatory—but not unpleasant.

Dean ducked his head and Castiel didn't have to time to even process what the action was, until he saw the the man intended to- bite? Was this the pain finally?

He let out a strangled cry as Dean's mouth closed around his cock, hot tongue pressed under the head, sucking gently. There were no teeth, no pain. “Wha-?” He let out inarticulately, before letting his head drop back, too dazed to respond further.

Dean was… pleasuring him?

He half wailed, half grunted, as Dean's fingers closed around the base of his cock and massaged the skin. He felt the human's other fingers running through the hair on his legs, the hair around his cock, then dipping to his balls, to massage gently, ever so gently.

Castiel wanted to look, but he didn't dare. He felt Dean's mouth, pressure from his lips, slide down his cock more fully, and in the back of his mind, Castiel realized that he must be fully erect, that his body _wanted_ sex. He had forgotten that it was even possible.

A low growl sounded in Dean's throat, and Castiel once again felt half threatened, but almost too pleasured to care. He grunted when Dean pulled off, sucking hard at the end, before licking over the head. The air, too cold, touching the wet and heated skin made him shiver.

“No, Cas, I'm not putting anything near your hole.” He spoke, voice deep, amusement making the sound rich. “How about you put somethin' near mine huh?”

A sudden thrash of raindrops hitting the glass wall behind him seemed to echo his thoughts. Did Dean— “Do you mean… Me? In you?” He barely recognized his own voice, it growled, an echo of a crash of thunder outside. He opened his eyes to find the room almost in complete darkness again. But he could not process it because before him, practically glowing, was Dean. Smiling gently, lips red and puffy, cock standing high and leaking.

A jolt of want went through him as Dean nodded his head.

Castiel was surprised by his own movement as he pulled Dean to him, spinning him onto the soft seat and positioning him to kneel against the side, his legs wide. Castiel kneeled up behind him, fascinated by his own cock as he moved. It was long and hard, the tip purpled slightly, glistening a little from Dean's saliva in the megre illumination from the outside light.

He grasped Dean's hips, trying to mirror the man's gentleness before positioning himself and trying to push in.

“Woah!” Dean yelled and pulled away, rolling with a thump to the floor. “Fuck! Fucking woah! Jeez Cas!” Castiel held onto the back of the seat, perplexed. Dean had said he could, hadn't he?

“You— You don't have a clue what you did wro—” Dean began, and shook his head, the surprise and astonished terror falling from his face in a moment. “I thought you were gonna—”

He huffed out a breath. Castiel was surprised to find himself saddened that Dean's cock was no longer stiff, falling between his legs as he sat on the floor, looking up at him, a rueful expression now on his face.

“Wait there.” Dean pointed at Castiel, and pushed himself from the floor. Castiel caught the man's sigh as he looked at the bed, shaking his head minutely. He followed Dean’s gaze, and wondered why they were not using it. But it seemed Dean was different, and did things differently than Castiel had ever experienced. He had been soft, where anyone else had been vicious; he had touched, not scratched, not to mention he wanted to take Castiel into his own body.

Dean returned to the small soft seat, pushing Castiel back slightly, so that he had more room. He had things in his hand, which he dropped to the floor out of sight. “Come here,” Dean breathed out, making room next to him on the seat, between his body, reclining, relaxed, and the cushioned back of the seat. Castiel hesitantly reclined, confused as to why Dean wanted him to lie next to him. The seat was so short that his knees had to bend underneath Dean’s, until he hooked one leg over his, and Castiel’s knees touched the human's backside.

“That's it,” Dean breathed out and spread his other leg so that he was splayed wide, one foot resting on the floor. Castiel's face was close to his, one arm trapped underneath his own body, the other held tight to his side. He was surprised to find Dean's arm slung around his own shoulders, his face turned up toward his own. Castiel pulled his head back, and more surprise filtered through his bewildered mind that Dean was once again erect, the tip glistening. Castiel swallowed hard.

Dean's free hand reached across his body, leaning up a little and twisting to reach Castiel's slightly softened erection. A groan sounded in the back of his throat at the pressure and movement. He only realized that his eyes had fallen closed, when Dean's mouth pressed against his, his tongue nudging at his lips. Castiel lost himself to the sensations, forgetting that he was meant to be allowing Dean to pleasure himself with Castiel's body, forgetting that he had wanted to thank Dean for his kindness.

He simply _felt._ Felt things as he never had before; softness and care. Tears welled up behind his closed eyes once again as he moved his own tongue over Dean's, feeling that he would have to thank the man all over again, simply for kissing him with heat and passion. He listened rapt as Dean groaned, and squeezed slightly harder at his cock.

Dean's lips didn’t leave his own as his hand stopped stroking at Castiel’s dick, the roughened palm stroking down his thigh to where his hand was still splayed, resting, not-quite-relaxed against his leg. Dean tangled his fingers with Castiel's and pulled his hand, his arm, across both their bodies, pulling him in against his side a little more.

Dean wrapped Castiel's hand around his cock. Castiel had never felt anything like it. On the rare occasions his hands had been unbound, it was never to touch like this. The man's penis was heavy, hot and hard in his hand, the skin sliding over the stiffness underneath. A moan escaped his throat, swallowed immediately by Dean's mouth still on his.

Dean's hand left his, leaving him to continue stroking him alone. He experimented, swiping his thumb over the head, feeling the stickiness, pushing his fingers down through the coarse hair and squeezing at the man's balls gently.

He ignored everything else going on around him—he was aware of Dean fumbling with something, making his kissing become distracted. He was half aware that the weather had turned into a raging storm beyond the impossible glass of the wall. He knew it had returned to the near blackness of night—but he didn't care. He concentrated on Dean's tongue moving against his own, the tickle of his eye lashes on his cheek, the occasional touch of Dean's hip to his cock, and the glorious sensation of bringing pleasure to the human by rubbing slowly and firmly along the length of his solid penis.

Eventually, Dean pulled back, blinking up at him, breathing hard. “You— you're amazing,” he breathed out. Castiel frowned. He understood the words, but the concept escaped him.

The man huffed a laugh and pried his fingers from his dick. “Here,” he whispered and took Castiel's hand. From a bottle that had been at his side, Dean poured a little cold liquid onto his fingers. Castiel just looked at it, unsure what he was supposed to do with it.

Dean craned his neck back up, and captured his lips again. Castiel felt lost and bewildered. But he smiled into the now—almost familiar—sensation.

Dean's hand took his own again, and he led his palm down, down past his balls, hitching his leg further up Castiel's body at the same time, opening his legs wider. The movement trapped Castiel’s aching cock a little and the feeling was good. He moaned again into Dean's mouth, but Dean didn't respond. Instead, he swiveled his hand around Castiel's, and pushed his fingers down, smearing the cold liquid against the skin beneath his balls.

Castiel's eyes opened when he finally realized where Dean was leading his hand, his fingers. But Dean pulled back, a smile on his face. “It's lube. Massage me, press in, massage more. It makes sex, well, good.” He smiled up at Castiel, completely unconcerned that he had just told Castiel to enter him—to breech him. “Go on, Cas, please,” he whispered against his lips. And, although Castiel could not comprehend why he would want it, why he would want to prolong the action and the pain, he, very slowly, very hesitantly, did as he was asked.

He pushed a slick digit against Dean's hole, rubbing small circles against the tight flesh, his own chest tight with mild fear and worry. Through their kiss, he kept his eyes open, watching Dean’s face carefully. Dean's ecstatic, loud groan a moment later, delivered straight into Castiel's mouth, was enough to set aside some of his doubt.

Maybe humans did not feel such pain there as the hath did. Or maybe… Sex _really_ was _not_ always the same as rape. Maybe the doubt he had harbored at those words, told to him so long ago, was unfounded after all.

He put his mind to his task, pressing gently and rubbing and touching, eliciting small groans and pants from Dean, until his finger just slipped inside. The action surprised him a little and he drew back, studying Dean's face for the agony he still half expected, but all he saw was blissed out pleasure. “More, Cas, use two fingers, then three. Stretch me out. Oh god, please stretch me out. I want you,” he whispered into the space between them, his breath, smelling of the chocolate, coming in quick gasps between them.

He spent long moments doing just as Dean asked, only pausing when Dean pulled his hand back to drizzle more of the _lube_ over his fingers.

Dean's eyes were squeezed shut by the time he pulled Castiel's hand away, his mouth unmoving, just panting.

Castiel knew he looked wide eyed, amazed at the beautiful spectacle of this human, heaving in breaths, rolling his hips into nothing, a tiny frown formed between his brows. Castiel leaned in to kiss it away, lost completely in the feel of the lax grip around his cock, not even stroking. Lost in the man before him, lit with the frequent flashes of lightning blasting through the clouds and the slashing rain beyond their room—their own private space.

Dean finally stilled his movement and looked up at Castiel and smiled wide, his eyes raking across Castiel's face and chest. He wriggled away from Castiel, and he found that he didn't want him to go. He curled his fingers back into the flesh of Dean's thigh, holding him close. Dean chuckled quietly, just above the sound of the rain. “It's okay. I'm not goin' anywhere. Kneel up, Cas.”

Castiel didn't understand, but, not understanding hadn't done him any disfavours thus far, so he knelt up, allowing Dean to push him further away, positioning him between his knees, facing him.

Dean was spread wide below him, the red glistening hole matching the head of his own straining cock. Castiel had to swallow, the want strong. “Just a sec,” Dean muttered, leaning up and pulling a small metallic square from the floor. “We gotta use this as I'm outta Sanemet and I dunno where you been.” He continued to mutter nonsense, almost too low for Castiel to hear as he tore open the square and pulled something from within. Castiel yelped as Dean leaned forward and wrapped his hands down his cock without warning. “Sorry,” the man sniggered, looking anything but, and Castiel looked down to find his erection was sheathed in a fine layer of what appeared to be rubber, although it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Dean leaned back and tilted his pelvis, exposing the tempting hole once again, spreading his legs impossibly further.

Castiel just sat there on his heels, looking at the display. He felt his cock twitch in desire. But he didn’t know exactly what Dean wanted of him—it was too much, too different to anything he had experienced in his life before.

Dean rolled his eyes and leaned up enough to grab Castiel's lube smeared hand. He pulled him down with him, dragging Castiel's body over his so that he slotted between the man's thighs. Something clicked in his head, as Dean leaned up again to capture his mouth with his own.

Castiel had never even _considered_ that intercourse could function in this position. But the head of his cock was undoubtedly hovering a mere thrust from Dean's open fluttering hole.

He suddenly froze, gripped with fear—he didn't want to hurt Dean, as it had always hurt Castiel. But the man was pulling back from their kiss muttering, “Please, please Cas, now, do it, please,” under his breath.

He took a deep breath and leaned forward, down, meeting his lips against Dean's again, before he felt the blunt end of his cock hit Dean's slick skin. He fumbled down with his hand, maneuvering himself until he felt his head press into the indentation of Dean's ass.

He replaced his hand, to find it tangled immediately with Dean's, their tongues just moving against one another, and he leaned in, finally daring to, and found _heat—_ it was so hot—pressure, perfection immediately engulfing his cock. It was so easy sliding within—no noise but a high pitched whine of pleasure from both of them. He slid to the hilt.

“Oh, fuck, Cas you're huge, you're perfect,” Dean groaned below him.

He stared down and the man, his face contorted, panting, a slight smile touching his open mouth.

Castiel was entranced.

Dean's eyes snapped open, “Move.” An order. Castiel obeyed.

Fearful of seeing Dean's expression contort into one of agony and pain, Castiel slid out slowly and undulated his hips to slide home again, so, so slow. “Fuck,” hissed Dean, his eyes wide and unfocused, the thunder sounding faint against the man's moans and heaving breath. He rocked again, sliding out to the tip and easily rolling back inside of Dean's tight heat. He realized that Dean wasn't the only one panting, moaning. His own groans lost to his ears against the pleasure coursing through his body, not only from the length of his erection, but from where Dean's knees pressed to his sides, where Dean's hands fisted in his own on the seat, where Dean's mouth was latched onto his neck. He felt alive, his body thrumming with gold and sunshine, fresh breezes and lightning strikes. He opened his eyes, throwing his head back to see the storm that raged without, a storm that matched the one heaving within himself.

He began thrusting into Dean in earnest, constantly aware of his comfort, his pleasure; words of praise, and thanks, adoration and amazement falling from his lips—in what languages, he no longer knew. He looked back down to Dean to see his eyes squeezed shut, head flung back, mouth open, fingers balled in fists around his own hands.

Castiel had seen many people climax. It had never been anything like this. They grunted, cursed, filled whichever orifice they had their penis in, withdrew and left.

Dean— Dean’s eyes flew open, another rumble of thunder accompanying his moaning gasp. His back arched, his chest heaved and his cock pulsed, sending string after string of burning white fluid to splatter across Castiel's stomach and his own chest.

The sight of that alone, of the obvious pleasure, his blown eyes, wide lips, flushed skin, sent Castiel into ecstasy himself. It was the first time he had climaxed since experiencing it in his sleep as a youth.

He flung his own head back, his eyes mostly shut. He felt Dean's hands curl around his thighs. The glorious heat sank down his spine, collecting between his legs. His movement became erratic, his breathing wild, his heartbeat thumping against the walls of his chest. He opened his mouth but had no knowledge if he made a sound or not, he could only hear the rain and Dean’s breath. He slammed into Dean, hard, once more, sending his seed deep into the human, pushing himself further in with each thrust. He dropped his head, grunting, as one final wave of pleasure overtook him with a last snap of his hips.

He looked up to meet Dean's eyes, wearing a lazy smile on his lips—

Only to see Dean's gaze, wide—not with lust or completion, but with fear and disbelief. The man's body was taut, his breathing shallow and rapid. His eyes were fixed over Castiel’s shoulders, flicking from side to side as he tried to scrabble back, away and off Castiel's body, where he was still firmly within him.

Horror rose in Castiel. It was not because he had caused him pain that Dean was suddenly trying to flee; it was because he could see his _wings._

He checked over his own shoulder in terror, _knowing,_ knowing for a _fact,_ that his wings and halo were hidden. He could _feel_ it if he manifested them, they were not even brought forth to the point where he could fly, yet Dean was clearly watching them move with growing agitation. Behind him was nothing but empty space, yet Dean's eyes tracked the movement of his flapping as he pushed himself back and off the human.

Dean's eyes finally met Castiel's. “You— You're—a-a-an ang—”

That was as far as Castiel allowed Dean's words to get.

Gently, with the utmost care, he pressed his clean fore- and middle-fingers to Dean's forehead and asked him to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Castiel cursed loud and long, once more utilising the menenth's more guttural language. Guilt, fear, disappointment, sadness and anger all warred within his body. He stretched out his invisible wings in agitation, then curled one forward to check, for the fifth time since fleeing Dean's apartment again, if they truly were still hidden. They were. There was no possibility that Dean could have seen his wings, or his halo, and yet his panicked eyes had clearly tracked the movement of them…

The fear that Dean had worked out what he was had driven him from the warmth of Dean's home once again. He grit his teeth against the surge of emotion that the simple act of leaving had left him with.

Not only had he lost his chance with his one ally against the hoards probably flinging themselves through the Bridge already, but he had lost warmth and dryness, a friendly smile and a careful touch. He was angry at Dean too, for somehow being able to see his wings, when he was certain that he hadn't allowed them to show. And then there was the sex— His anger bubbled away and he stopped short, biting his lip. He felt no anger toward Dean for that, he could not blame him. He had offered himself in thanks. At a distance now, Castiel felt a red hot feeling clutch at his chest. He realized that Dean had never intended to take that from him, had never expected to rape him. When it was offered, he almost had to be cajoled. Castiel felt something akin to shame, something he hardly recognized in himself. As much as he regretted his motives, and the outcome, Castiel found that he could not regret the action itself. Dean had shown him that sex wasn't always hateful, filled with and fuelled by fear, pain, terror and agony. It could be soft and pleasurable. The warmth from his own organsm still pulsed in his gut, leaving him wanting more, wanting more of Dean.

But he could never go back to Dean. He had to hide, for if Dean knew he was a hath, that would be the end.

He had to disappear and yet, somehow still prevent this forsaken world from being destroyed. If only to prevent Dean from being destroyed.

Castiel stopped in the unceasing rain. The thunder and lightning had passed over, but the storm still raged. He needed to find this Complex, but with the cloud cover of this world, let alone a storm, he couldn’t even begin to contemplate true flight, even if his Grace were sufficiently strong again. It wasn't, as evidenced by the bandage wrapped around his still healing ear, and the cuts across his backside that Dean had kissed so tenderly.

A sob worked its way out of his chest and he bit into his fist to keep from letting go. He would not cry again, not this day, and certainly not because he felt like he had lost something that he had never truly had in the first place.

He ducked under an overhang across the path cut between the tall gray buildings. A city, Dean had called this place. One of the few to survive their war. He knew he was lengths from the Bridge, but, from what Dean had said, that was where the Complex was. That was where he needed to be.

He no longer trusted his memory of where the Bridge was, the high buildings, the exhaustion, and the healing taxing his Grace were disorientating him. As he couldn't fly there over land, he would have to walk, but he could at least jump world to check his direction before he got lost in the maze of buildings once again, he thought.

He closed his eyes and thought of a world he knew the menenth had deserted entirely on their path through, when he was still young, before his brother had been taken from him. They had stayed on the planet only long enough to rally everyone before they had relaid the hundreds of _lengths_ of iron chain in order to step to the next world, taking the thousands of slaves, troops, and angels from other worlds with them.

The planet had been completely given up; useless, barren. The shell of the world too hard and too deep for the menenth to mine for the iron they needed, or anything else precious.

Castiel opened his eyes and found himself on the bare planet, his wings complaining of the strain of flying between worlds, but Castiel ignored it. It was nowhere near as taxing as using them to move himself longitudinally through air. That he learnt on his first flight; jumping straight from his cage and trying to move across the world at the same time as he flitted from one planet to another.

The bare planet before him boasted dry air, if a cool atmosphere, and he shivered as he turned on the spot looking for the telltale arc of wavering air that was the Bridge on the horizon.

He knew vaguely how far from the Bridge he was, but he was surprised to find that he couldn't see it, truly, from his position on the featureless globe he stood on, dripping water onto the solid ground. He could, however, just discern the detritus that the encampment had left behind when the menenth had passed through. The litter of broken tents, bodily waste, discarded weaponry, forgotten baskets of food and the charred remains of campfires spread across lengths and lengths of the earth in a huge swath. He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the disregard the invading masses had for such a dead planet, let alone how much worse, horrifically so, it had been where the indigenous population had fought or tried to stop the marching war.

The point he found himself standing in was an encampment on many worlds; near the fresh water sea, far enough from the Bridge, but close enough too. Castiel _knew_ exactly where he was now. Finding his way to the Bridge, to the Complex on Earth would not be a problem. He sighed and eyed the distance. Too far to even see the Bridge, it would take him days to walk, and that was over this barren world. On Earth? He couldn't guess the time it would take.

He could fly, he supposed with a sigh. He could walk as far as he could on this bare rock, allow another day or two for his Grace to recover from the years of captivity and dampening the iridium eyelet and manacles had caused, then fly across this world. All before returning to the Earth to help protect the humans and their planet that seemed to have an intrinsic _pull_ on his Grace.

A wind started up, chilling him through the clothes he had put back on in Dean's apartment before leaving again.

He sighed against the freezing breeze. Who was he trying to fool? He was still injured, torn open and sore, even after so long without fresh wounds; there was no way his Grace could sustain him in a true flight, even if he rested for two days straight, eating and sleeping as his body desired. He had to go back to Earth and try to warn humans who could get to the Complex, or to acquire a car and get there himself.

Once again, he cursed Dean for being so tender and warm, for making Castiel lose control, for that was the only explanation he could come up with—despite _knowing_ that he hadn't—that Dean could have seen his wings. Dean had been his only realistic option to help prevent this war. Dean had even said he wanted to help, wanted to talk.

He sat and rested—unsure what else to do—until the sun crested the height of its arc.

He watched as it started to dip toward the horizon once again, the sky turning inky and the stars revealing themselves to him for the first time in days.

He shook his head before concentrating on his destination once again, the place where the sun never came out from behind the cloud, blaming himself for mis-reading the human, for not realising that he hadn't wanted thanks in that manner.

If he had just taken without thought to Dean's kindness he would still have an ally, instead of being hunted.

-

Castiel opened his eyes only to have them lashed with windborne rain, and he wondered again with a scowl, whether it was simply the _pull_ that brought so many angels and demons to this world. It certainly wasn't the climate.

He pointed himself in the correct direction again, and stepped back out into the rain with a sigh. He found himself wishing he had taken the discarded hoodie, rather than leaving Dean’s side in simply the thin item he had given him to wear on his top half. At least he had shoes this time, he thought, enjoying the dryness of his feet.

He lowered his head and started trudging, stepping around the deepest puddles and keeping his arms wrapped around his middle, trying to keep himself warm, still chilled from the dry, cold, bare planet.

He allowed his thoughts to drift back to the morning spent with Dean; to the moment his uncertainty disappeared in the obvious pleasure he was causing Dean. He smiled at the thought, before the reality crashed down around him once more. Dean now knew he was an angel, and by default, that meant he knew he was a hath. No other angel or demon could hide their Grace nor Wroth. Most were obviously non-human looking too, but their wings or halo, horns or tail, at least one aspect of their angelic or demonic selves were always visible. The menenth took exception to the fact that the hath—when they had appeared on their planet, scared and fleeing the fate of their own world—habitually kept the evidence of their angelic nature hidden.

The menenth found them disgusting and imprisoned them, the last of their kind—fleeing the death that filled their planet—the only angels able to fly between worlds without the war torn rift that was the Bridge. Not that the Bridge existed when the hath had first found themselves slaves, alongside many of the menenth’s own kind. Their captors allowed them to breed from time to time, slowly raping them to a dwindling death until, with Gabriel torn from him, Castiel was the last one alive.

A set of harsh syllables sounded and his attention snapped back to his surroundings, the rain washed grayness. A lead weight dropped through his gut and his heart.

His preoccupation had led to the worst possible place he could be; a rain-washed dead end with a group composed of menenth slaves, too low in intelligence and Grace to make it back through the Bridge.

The sight of the dimly glowing ends of their legs, their horny, bone like wings and weakly shining halos, made the bile rise in his throat.

After the warmth he had spent with Dean these… _creatures_ made him sick; he could already see their erections, large and bony, displacing the breecclouth draped about their hips.

He tried to remind himself that they did not know what he was. He blended in perfectly as human; he was yet to see angels or demons gang up in groups on humans, despite their lack of Grace or Wroth, their lesser strength, often their lesser stature—

Something in his gut warned him that these were not the same as the other angels or demons on this planet, though. Something about them had a tinge of insanity, rising lust, of the need to hurt and take. That something that only menenth touched by the Bridge had. That something that he had seen time and time again.

These must be fresh from the Bridge, too scrambled to just go straight back in and return to their original location or find their destination.

Fear struck him at a new thought— Either that, or they were the foreguard, scouting for the humans beyond the Complex that he had been hoping to find.

Maybe he was too late already? Maybe the war was already here.

The grotesquely aroused angels were oblivious to the thoughts flying through Castiel's mind. They spat out their syllabus, and it took Castiel a moment to readjust to the guttural speech and thick vowels.

“You still have the weapon?” one asked another, his blue glowing eyes never leaving Castiel's diminutive form.

“Yes,” the other leered, grinning and adjusting the cloth over his groin.

“We can take this one and leave it like we did the others,” said a third menenth that had circled around behind Castiel.

He cursed silently. These angels were barely even people anymore. Given a free reign, discarded by their leader on another planet when they had no hope of making it back though the Bridge— It appeared they had decided to rape and kill anything in their path, or so it seemed, going by the gore splattered across the two in front of him, and the blood smeared on the cloth barely covering the large one's straining, bony cock.

It suddenly dawned on Castiel that he would not escape this without a fight. A longing shot through him for the warm arms of Dean, his soft eyes and easy smile, but, with a growl in his throat he turned his gaze to his would be attackers, assessing and cruel. He wouldn't go down easy, he had too much to fight for.

The one who had readjusted himself now had a metallic… _thing_ in his hand. A tube attached to a handle. Castiel did not know what it was, but had seen one before; when he was in the Police precinct, sitting in belts attached to humans’ hips.

His stomach jolted again as he realized this was the weapon the first had spoken of. Even though he did not understand how it could maim, he did not doubt that it could.

He widened his stance and brought his arms up to protect his face and chest. He wondered at the irony of having just run from Dean, lamenting the fact he would never be allowed to see him again, to almost certainly never being able to see him, because he would soon simply be so much meat on the ground.

The breecclouth-hitching-one lifted the metallic tube, and with glee on his face, pointed it at Castiel. He eyed it warily as the large angel stamped toward him. He didn't dare move his eyes from the first two, but he could hear the third moving behind him too. He swallowed, fear suddenly prickling across his skin.

A scratching laugh suddenly filled the narrow path, making the hair rise on his skin, he knew that sound. It didn't last long though, a terrifyingly loud bang filled the space between the towering buildings. Castiel blinked, watching smoke get pulled to the ground by the rain.

It was not until arms gripped him from behind that he felt the pain.

He looked down at his body, wondering why his torso was screaming at him like it never had before. He saw blood. Blood blossoming and blooming, falling and staining his torso; flowing down. He absently thought that Dean would be unhappy it had ruined his clothes.

Time slowed, and he almost stepped from the world— But he knew it would not help with the angel holding him from behind, he would only take him with him, draining his Grace even further. His left arm was useless, heavy at his side. Pain screamed through him, dulling his other senses.

The bloodiest one reached him, a foul grin spread across his flattened, bone-like mask of a face. The glowing stumps of his legs illuminated the tent of his coverings. Castiel's vision swam and he finally felt his tired Grace kick in, trying to mend the hole in his shoulder. He struggled slightly against the hold of the one behind him, feeling the hard length of his talon like penis dig into his lower back. One advantage to being a seventh shorter than the menenth he supposed, deliriously.

He watched his own arm rise up—the uninjured one—as if someone else had control of it.

He didn’t even think—a reflex.

He touched his palm to the menenth's forehead, grimacing at the cold armoured skin, and simply thought 'die.'

Light flared, heat rushed, his sanity returned with the stabbing pain in his shoulder as the angel fell in a heap behind him, wings burning in the steadily pouring rain.

The other two angels paused in their advance, and Castiel cursed that his depleted Grace wasn't remotely strong enough to take advantage of their shock.

The first raised the weapon again, and this time, Castiel saw him squeeze his finger, another bang, more searing pain, only no—not so bad, just a jerk to his arm, the heat of blood, but whatever it was hadn't entered his body, had only grazed it.

“Hath!” the second screamed in his face, his foul breath choking Castiel's senses. How had he never noticed how utterly repulsive they were before? Dirty, rancid and grotesque.

He advanced, no longer fearful of detection, he had outed himself, he had to finish the job. He saw the first squeeze his finger again, but Castiel continued to advance, wincing when he expected the bang to happen—but nothing did.

The angel looked perplexed, the sunken eyes glowing in confusion as it looked at the human weapon. He tried to dislodge it from his horny fingers but the silver thing was stuck. Castiel almost laughed at the absurdity of it—when he suddenly hit the ground. The other angel, massive but quick, flew into his side, landing on top of his as he hit the ground hard, his rigid, terrible penis digging into his hip from behind, the creature’s weight pushing his stomach and chest into the cold wet ground.

“I have something for you _hath,”_ he hissed into his face, saliva spattering Castiel's cheek, leaving slimy trails on his skin.

White hot pain seared deeply into the back of his shoulder and radiated out in sickeningly hot waves.

The menenth laughed.

Castiel could not move.

His grace was gone, the pain one hundred, one thousand times worse than the first pain the weapon had caused, stabbing through his chest, freezing his heart, through his belly, clamping his muscles, stabbing trails of cold through his limbs, catching hold of his brain and clenching.

In front of his face, near choking on rain water, the menenth’s hand took his weight, long spiny fingers covered in blood—Castiel’s own. He didn't know why, but in that faltering view, his vision wavering, he knew that the angel had pushed a shard of Iridium deep into the first wound.

He hoped it was a lump a similar size to the toothed eyelet he had ripped from his ear before he has escaped, but he feared it was something tiny, too small to ever retrieve, so small he would be forever bound to this world, his Grace once more dampened and hidden inside of him.

To his own disgust, tears leaked from his eyes.

The pain was too great to do anything. His body was wrecked, and the duo had no difficulty holding him to the ground, ripping the jeans from him and spreading his legs wide.

The first lifted his hips. Castiel's arm was too damaged to support him in any way and he found his chest and face dragged across the rough, hard ground, his eyes lining up with the empty pools of black where the smote menenth’s eyes used to be; now nothing but ash. He lay, mouth open, horror still etched on his bony face, death mask judging.

Castiel smiled at the dead angel as the first menenth pushed in, ripping him open, the bone and spines along the huge length of the menenth ruining what progress his Grace had made in putting him back together.

His last thought before the first angel opened his mouth to _sing_ —the pain causing him to blissfully pass out—was that he hoped that Dean would fight when the armies finally descended. He hoped Dean would survive.


	9. Chapter 9

Dean stretched out luxuriously, a pleasant ache suffusing his body, a smile tugging at his lips, warmth surrounding him.

That— That wasn't right. He always woke up cold, with a dull ache in his ribcage, not his lower back…

“Fuck,” he hissed out, the memories flowing through his mind at a lightning pace, dread sinking low in his gut.

Castiel… Castiel was an angel.

He sat bolt upright, confused as all hell.

Where was his angel? The apartment was obviously empty. Stiflingly warm. Hours must have passed since— Since Castiel had put him to sleep? He remembered being surprised and confused, looking at the glorious display that were the man's—no, the angel's—wings. He remembered the misery and terror on Castiel's face as he gently touched two fingers to Dean's forehead, and then nothingness.

“Fuck!” he yelled at the top of his voice, glaring at the cracked window by the table. This time, he took in the mess of his clothes on the floor, the cushions scattered and battered, the condom discarded on the floor next to the bed, the bottle of lube wedged in between the sofa cushions.

Tears welled up in his eyes. _Could that messy fucker not stay? Not even once?_ he thought to himself.

With raised eyebrows he finally realized that, if Castiel had just up and left like he had initially assumed, he would still be curled on his back on the couch, come—an awful lot of come—smeared all over him, sweat dried and chilling his skin.

Instead he was clean, dry and warm, he discovered, as he traced a hand across his chest and belly. He had awoken in the bed, clean and covered with his blankets. The room was still being heated the way Dean had set it for Castiel's benefit.

He flopped back onto the bed, blaming himself. If he had kept his wonder at seeing Castiel's astonishingly beautiful wings to himself, then he might have stayed.

His wings and his fuckin' halo, he thought, with a smile on his face. Many angels had halos, most of them had wings, but Castiel's were far more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before.

Ethereal, glowing every shade of blue, insubstantial, like swirling gas, glowing from within, or neon ink dropping into water. Never staying still, moving with the man's thrusts, writhing as Castiel had hit his orgasam and pumped Dean full like he had never been before.

He groaned at how good that would have felt if he’d had any Sanemet, the cure-all anti-venereal disease pill they had finally released after years of research about forty years before.

He would have been dribbling come out of his ass for hours. He grinned at the thought, then sobered a little, remembering that the man had gone, wings or not, he was back on the street in little more than jeans and a t-shirt.

He glanced over at the door where Castiel had discarded his shoes as they had come in, and was pleased to see them gone again, even though they wouldn't help him much. They were so old and worn he would be able to feel every stone and bump in the road through them.

A thought flitted through his mind as he stared at the damp spot where the shoes had sat, of sitting at Bobby's one day, when John had left them to go work. Bobby had been reading an old book, one he had said was from one of the other worlds. An angel had given it to him as thanks for helping her apply for a visa to stay on the planet, her information somehow failing to state that she was a first grade psychic.

Dean had been curious, and Bobby had handed it to him, then thrown another book at his head, telling him to read that one first. He'd pouted, but done as he was told. He found both books to be fables, legends and fairy tales. He could see why Bobby had told him to read both. It was obviously where many of Earth's tales had come from, before the Bridge, when an angel or a demon might have fallen through the cracks, just like Benny's kind had, and started off the ancient legend of the vampires.

The angel's book was similar. He found three tales, written in flowery Native that clearly reference humans, before they had known what a human was. A fourth story he had avidly sat and read, it being about another ‘Graceless angel’, until it turned out not to be about a human at all.

Dean scrunched up his face, thinking back to that book, back to the story that Bobby had hit him about the head with for suggesting it wasn't worth reading.

The angel, because that was what it was, was the rarest and most powerful of all the people of the worlds. It was so powerful that it did not need to flaunt it power on it's body, and simply _was._

The story had ended by saying, though, that they were all dead and gone, the last of their kind was locked in a cage of glowing metal, trapped for all eternity.

Dean blinked furiously trying to remember the faint, water stained image that had been in the book. The image had looked nothing like Cas, but he couldn't help wonder if the story had been truer than he had ever thought. If Castiel was one of, or _the_ last h— hoth? hooth? hath?

_Hath._

Dean let out a huge sigh, remembering the correct word from the book, and stared up at his stained ceiling. Cas was clearly an angel, potentially a powerful one. One with hidden, glowing, neon blue, inky, gassy ephemeral wings and halo.

_What. The. Hell?_

Suddenly anger gripped him, embarrassment and irritation, and he threw himself out of the bed and started pacing the small room, completely oblivious to his nakedness.

The man he had tried to save turned out to be a fuckin' hath? A fuckin' rumour? He could have wiped Dean off the face of the Earth with a damned thought, and yet he had looked completely adorable and helpless in Dean's too large clothes.

“Shit,” he whispered

He rubbed his hands over his face, then fell back to the bed, realising that his anger wasn't because the man he had wanted to save turned out _not_ to be an imprisoned victim of some sort of weird cult, but because the rumour, the myth, the ethereal, stone faced bad-assed fucker had left. _Again_.

Not only that, but he’d had the fucking audacity to knock Dean out before running this time. And even more fucking audacity to clean him up and ensure he was comfortable, warm and cosy before he ran away from his problems once again, leaving Dean with that delicious ache in his muscles and no one to wrap his arms around.

“Jeez,” he groaned under his breath. He just wanted to pull the bastard into a hug and never let go.

He thought for a moment about Castiel's look of surprise and confusion before he had pressed his fingers to Dean's sweat covered brow, as if he wasn't expecting Dean to be able to see his wings. He remembered the guy had even looked over his shoulders, his frown cut even deeper when he turned back, fear etching his features.

Castiel hadn't understood how Dean could have been seeing his wings.

But that meant—

“Not possible,” he muttered, slumping his head into his hands. He heaved another sigh, before checking the time— He rolled his eyes, irritated once again. Castiel's mojo had put him out for most of the day. He had just enough time to wash up and get ready for work before picking Benny up.

He groaned before heaving his pleasantly sore ass into the shower.

-

“What's up Brother?” Benny asked as he folded his frame into the Impala, looking across to Dean's grim face.

Dean just shrugged, staring idly at Benny's head where it was ducked within the car's interior. “Dean,” Benny questioned, tilting his head to get Dean's attention.

“Hmm?”

“What's got into ya today?” Benny asked, finally getting Dean's attention fully on him.

“Oh. Nothin'. Don't worry about it.” He shrugged off Benny's concerned tone and put the car into drive, pulling away into the dark streets.

“Yeah, alright,” he answered, suspicion ringing loud and clear in his tone. “You uh, been listenin' to the radio today?” Dean shook his head, not willing to give away what had led to his lack of awareness for the day. Benny hummed out a neutral noise. “There's been a whole load of new angels and demons turnin' up seemingly. That group we caught yesterday weren't the only ones. Even the farms have been reporting problems. Folks been turning up dead too.”

Dean grunted in response, his thoughts flying guiltily to Castiel once again, fearing that the man's warnings were even more valid, now that he knew what he was.

He blamed himself for being swept along by Castiel’s confusing seduction; he almost felt like he’d raped the angel, albeit unwittingly. He’d found himself scrubbing his skin red-raw in the shower, while he stared at the wet and dirty clothes Castiel had left on the bathroom floor once again; the pitiful pile the only evidence that Cas had even been there.

The only vindicating feeling he had about sleeping with Castiel, was that at the end, just before their orgasms, Castiel had seemed free, happy, completely consumed by the good feelings within his body. Dean had wondered, in that hot breathless moment, if that was what the rapture would look like.

He huffed out a sigh and tried to remember where he was. Yet again, about to go into work, facing potentially dangerous off-worlders and searching for a beautiful angel in borrowed clothes.

At the Precinct, he and Benny hastily got out of the Impala at the general feeling of urgency filling the entire area. Humans, angels and demons scurried everywhere in the rain like ants, cars pulled up in sprays of water and light flooded the lot.

“You! Lafitte, Winchester—” Walker yelled from the steps of the precinct, “get your gear on, you got a call in already.”

“Crap,” Benny muttered just within hearing, clearly thinking along the same lines as Dean. Gordon only left the building when shit was going down. “Come on man, let’s find out where we're goin'.” With that, Benny strode into the building, yanking open his weapons cage the moment he was in the locker room and loading his belt up, Dean only seconds behind.

-

The call had come in from a woman who’d heard gunshots and screaming. As per usual, as the call had come from a demon, Gordon had pushed it down on the list of emergency responses and waited until Dean and Benny's shift had begun at eight until sending anyone to investigate. Dean was fuming at the injustice off-worlders received at the hands of people like Gordon. The same kind of treatment that his father had adhered to and doled out.

“For fuck's sake Benny, the bastards are long gone by now,” he swore, surveying the scene.

The Anti-Off-Worlder groups would have a field day with this, he thought. They were always threatening that something like this would happen, or that it was already happening, but they never had proof. Once they got their hands on this, a barbaric and violent act against humans, it would make their day.

Dean looked across to Benny, who was looking a little pale in the headlights from the Police truck that illuminated the scene.

On the ground were four bodies, in a rapidly growing pool of blood. It faded to pink as it diluted and spread with the rain, running along the dark ground. The splashes rebounded back up, a lurid red caught in the bright white headlights.

The bodies were grouped, three together on one side of the alley, lying where they fell amongst refuse and rubble. The fourth body lay alone further along in the centre of the narrow road and caught directly in the car's beams.

Dean crouched to inspect the three grouped bodies. They were all male, one demon and two humans. The demon was a rarity, a _male_ Agma Seytan, second degree Red. The males were outnumbered on their world, and many fled to Earth to avoid being turned into a puppet for breeding. The humans were typical street scum. Too common in the city, where education was lacking and the only jobs available were for graduates of the Complex or apprentices. Instead, they illicitly distilled alcohol and concocted drugs, frequently becoming dependant on their own product. Those higher up the food chain used mules to cross the Bridge, bringing alien product to human soil—

Dean had noted the small waxed paper packets floating in the surface rain water before they had even gotten out of the truck. A few were split opened, the powder or pills within long dissolved in the water.

He sighed at the pathetic corpses in front of him on the asphalt. These were not mules, simply addicts. Filthy, bedraggled, skinny with sallow, sunken skin. Two had bullet wounds, all three had terrible looking gashes across their skin, the edges torn and uneven. As he looked closer, closing his nose off to the smell of blood and shit, he noted that all three had been bleeding from their ears too.

Dean was good at compartmentalising, something Benny, who was inspecting the other corpse, wasn't so great at. It was the reason he was crouched with these bodies—the one without bullet wounds had had his belly ripped out, guts and entrails spread wide; blue, purple and red, his hands bloody, trying to hold the mess inside.

Dean did not look at the expression on his face.

As he stood, Dean noticed a shoulder holster for a gun tucked inside the shot human's canvas jacket. He ducked down again and, using the short baton from his belt, moved the jacket aside a little. As he had suspected; the holster was empty.

It was illegal to carry a gun, the ban coming in shortly after the war, with only some professions allowed. But, he was not surprised to find such a weapon on the drug dealers. They lived in a dangerous world.

“Anything?” he asked Benny, his voice gruff. He cleared his throat, walking across to the fourth corpse, pulling in a breath in surprise.

“Too much, you could say,” Benny answered, still crouched by the angel. His halo, no longer supported by his Grace, sat broken across his head, the skin hardened, like boot leather or wood or very old bone, Dean thought. The skin was a gray-chestnut color, and the bullet wound that had killed him was obvious. It colored the mostly naked skin a dark red where it had poured sticky and refused to be washed from the pits and creases in his skin by the rain.

“What the fuck _is_ that?” he asked, looking at the stumps of his four legs, splayed in a pot hole. He pushed the toe of his boot to where the leg should have continued, but the steel toecap went straight through the air and water.

The angel's wings were more like a solid sheet of horn or bone, pitted like its face, than regular wings, and its fingers were long and sharp and smothered in skin, blood, and entrail.

Benny made a noise of disgust deep in his throat. For a demon who needed fresh animal blood to sustain him, Benny sure was squeamish.

“Fuck, do you reckon there were more of 'em?” Benny questioned, looking at the scene.

“Four bullet wounds, a gun holster and no gun? I'd say so. And I think there were more from the angel's group.” He looked behind him at the slumped figures of the bodies in the puddled rain. “Those poor fuckers were hardly capable. If there were any more of them, I think they would have run. If there were more of the angels? Shit, who knows?”

He started toward the truck to begin bagging and cataloguing the evidence. No doubt Gordon would ignore the whole lot, but it had to be done anyway. He needed to call an ambulance to take the corpses away too. “They could be anywhere by now,” he grumbled, cursing Walker's no-fucks-given attitude.

“Maybe the other teams have caught them? There were four active calls when I checked in with Walker,” Benny mumbled, as he photographed the scene.

As with the evidence, the photographs would probably never be looked at. The Council had no time to give to junkie-on-illegal off-worlder violence. They didn't care if they all killed each other. But Dean did.

And not least because of his angel's vague warnings. It couldn't be a coincidence that the increase in never-before-seen off-worlders and emergency calls fell when an almost extinct species of angel shows up out of the blue warning of a war coming. He felt that guilt clench his gut again at the thought that he’d let Castiel down.

“Here brother,” Benny spoke softly, nudging him with his shoulder and handing him a set of gloves. Dean continued to allow Benny to behave as if Dean was overwhelmed by the gore on the ground, not the mess of things he had made.

Benny had been good, taking Dean's lead and not mentioning Castiel since the night he had allowed Dean to take him to the 'hospital.' But nonetheless, the vamiir had been a little more careful around Dean since that night. Dean hated it, but for not mentioning Castiel and his disappearing act, he would take the babying.

Dean watched Benny pick his way back over to the angel's corpse while he sat back under cover of the truck to call in to the Precinct and order an ambulance.

An unearthly screech split the night air, dimming the sound of the rain drumming on the metal roof, and the hiss and pop of the static on the radio. Dean felt the sound enter his head, causing his vision to swim and his balance to go. He wanted to drop and hide, or simply die, give up and let the night take him.

Through the haze he saw Benny fall to the ground, and he knew that had he been standing he would have done the same. The pain chewing at his brain was unbearable, but there was a cure. Something they had. He knew he didn't have to just accept it, but the slicing sounds cut through his senses. A tingling in his finger tips made him turn to look at his hand. It looked strange, unreal, not his own. It was scrabbling at his hip.

Reason rushed back at the sight of his hand digging for the regulation earplugs. He fought the numbness in his limbs and forced his fingers to his will. Shaking, he numbly pushed the small blue nubs into his ears, jamming them home so hard the pain almost equalled that of the screeching noise.

The moment the sound was cut off, he drew in a stuttering breath, bewildered by the strength of the noise. Without a second thought he ran to his friend who was doing his best to get to his own earplugs, but was having difficulties maneuvering his arms from his position on the ground. He flipped open the man's belt pouch and forced the plugs in Benny's ears, watching reason and knowledge return to his partner's eyes in a matter of moments.

“Fuck!” he yelled, more from panic than the muffled noises bleeding through the ear protection. “What the fuck?!” He dragged Benny to his feet and took off the moment the man had his balance, in the direction he supposed the noise to have come from. It was difficult to pinpoint because of the skull cracking agony it inflicted, but of the two directions available—into, or out of the alley—he dived further into the network of narrow streets and tall buildings.

The keening noise was still going, he could feel it battering the material of his earplugs, trying to worm its way through. Suddenly the blood in the ears of the victims made sense, if only mere seconds of exposure had caused him to want to just lie there and let himself die, to numb his limbs and distort his vision. The weapon was a powerful one, probably the most powerful he’d ever seen.

He finally went skittering around a corner, almost losing his balance as he dodged a twisted metal fire escape, and came to an absolute stand still; another barbaric scene before him.

It was without conscious thought—his training kicking in, the repetitive words of his father and his superior officers drilling through his brain—that he moved.

He stepped forward one pace and pulled his gun from his holster, the knowledge that these creatures were susceptible to chest shots at the least already ingrained in him. In the second or so it took to pull out his gun, remove the safety catch, cock and aim the weapon, he took in the scene.

Two angels. The same species as the dead one he and Benny had left in the alley. He noted their differences alive to dead. They stood tall, about seven foot. Their legs ended, not as the dead ones had, but in Grace-glowing stumps, hovering above the ground. Their halos pulsed dully. One stood facing him, mouth open, the screeching emanating from his throat. The other, back turned, was on its knees, rhythmically rocking.

Two bodies lay on the floor. One, another angel; no Grace glow. Dead. The other human, or humanoid, unmoving, dead or unconscious, clothes ripped and gone, face to the ground, being raped.

Wearing Dean's t-shirt. Blood stained. Potentially dead.

Being raped.

Dean smiled. A twisted mockery of mirth.

He dropped to one knee. Fired two shots in rapid succession. Watched blood spurt from the head shots. Heard the bodies drop. Felt the unholy wailing end. Got up. Ran.

Dean dropped to his knees again, this time next to the body on the ground, limp and broken. He gathered him up into his arms, rocking and crying and holding him close. Blood was everywhere. “Oh Jesus fucking Christ, Cas. No, not you, please be okay, please, please.

“Please.”


	10. Chapter 10

Castiel's first thought when he came to and realized that hearing was all he had, was _not again._

Instead of the unidentifiable sounds of rain, Castiel heard a whole new host of sounds all assaulting his ear drums. They were loud, painfully loud, echoing. Voices, a deep rumble, bells and screeches.

He gave up and sank gratefully back into the blackness.

The second time he came to, he wished that all he had was hearing.

He didn't dare open his eyes but pain crowded him, his head hurt, inside and out, but that was the least of it. His ass screamed in pain, but it was a pain he knew well, and easily ignored just like the last time he woke up like this. His brain appeared to have different thoughts on the matter as he felt the tracks of hot tears spill from his closed eyes and run down his cheeks to his neck.

The pain that was not so easily ignored was white hot and searing, choking and incapacitating. His shoulder, neck, arms, spine, front and back roared with the pain, screamed with it, shrill and exacting.

He lay still and tried to drift.

Eyes closed and still as possible he attempted to work out what had happened. His last memory was of the menenth's voice piercing it's way into his brain, debilitating him without his Grace to protect him. At that point he had known he would die. Why would menenth leave a _hath_ to live? He had been done for the moment he had smote the angel at his back.

So, he wondered, how was he alive?

Pressure and a stab of agony caused him to yelp in pain and throw his eyes open to try and defend himself from this newest attack.

Green, terrified, red-rimmed eyes blinked back at him, wide and worried. He dazedly trailed his eyes down, jaw, neck, shoulders, arms, bloody hands, a wad of red stained white fabric, his own shoulder twitching and leaking blood from under Dean's spread hands.

“D—Dean?” At that point, he decided he wasn't capable of believing his own eyes. He was alive when he should not be. He was being tended to by a human who should, by rights, be trying to hunt him down.

All he got in response was the back of Dean's bloody hand gently running down his jaw and a shushing noise, before the man's hand returned to pressing firmly on the wound in his shoulder.

“I—” he began, causing Dean's eyes to snap back to his own. “You— I didn't— I—” A tiny sad smile flitted across Dean's face, as his eyes dropped once more to the bleeding mess that was his shoulder.

“Don't worry Cas, you're good, now.” The man's voice sounded choked, thick and heavy. Castiel decided to believe him and closed his eyes again letting himself float between the sensations of searing pain, subdued panic and bubbling warmth.

The pressure of Dean's hands on his shoulder left suddenly without warning, taking that warmth with it. Castiel tried not to groan with the pain nor the loss. “Nurse! Nurse. Please—” Castiel listened as Dean cut himself off. He realized he must be in a medic's tent or building.

“Officer Winchester, Right?” Castiel heard a stern voice ask in accented American. He chose to feign sleep, it being the easier course with the dragging biting sensation emanating from within his shoulder. From the Iridium sitting inside of him. Dean must have nodded as the woman continued; “Your victim is not an emergency case yet, I’m afraid, sir. He is on the list, but with so few resources, until he goes into cardiac arrest or similar, he has to await his turn for—” Castiel listened to the rustling of paper, whilst he tried to take deep even breaths. “treatment of… a gunshot wound to the shoulder, and suturing of injuries consistent with anal rape.”

Castiel frowned slightly. The word gun meant nothing to him, but he could assume it was the weapon that had thrown something into his shoulder causing the initial wound. Treatment for that made sense as they would have to dig out the projectile. It was the other pronouncement that had him confused. How could they possibly treat rape?

Before his thoughts could get any further, the strict voice continued. “Has he had his dose yet?” He frowned, wondering if his grasp of this mangled language wasn't as good as he had thought.

“No ma'am, he's only just woken up,” Castiel almost sniggered at Dean's obedient and quick to answer voice.

He felt a presence lean over him and huffed out an amused snort. He cracked one eye open and the terrifying, white, craggy face with a plume of hair-like-Grace and a spindly, studded halo cracked a smile and winked at him.

She turned away, back to Dean's frantic expression and hummed. “I'll have the dose brought over and some pain killers. I'll bring a rape kit and find a temporary room too.” Castiel had already closed his eyes once more, trying to ignore the pain, but he felt Dean slump in relief from half a length away, nonetheless.

Castiel drifted for a while, basking in the shock-pain-warmth-touch of Dean's hands on the gunshot wound, trying to stanch the blood that would not stop welling out. Seemingly that was not a good thing, going by Dean's muttering. The human appeared to believe that he was unconscious, or asleep, and was whispering encouragements to him, telling him not to give up, to try and get better, that he had to pull through. He was too tired to laugh at the man, to tell him that he would be fine, if only he could pull out the Iridium. His Grace, though, was repressed, and the wound would not close with foreign objects sitting within his body in any case.

“Officer Winchester, leave the poor man alone! You're probably making it worse, poking at it like that! If he hasn't died yet, I'm certain he isn't about to drop off the mortal plane just because you took your hands off the wound—” Dean's palms left Castiel's chest as if he had been stung. “There, it's barely bleeding.”

The angel’s voice became a reassuring sound to Castiel and he smiled a little, pulling a strange hiccuping sound from Dean.

“Come on young man, let's get that bed cranked up so you can drink.” It took a moment, but Castiel realized she was talking to him. He opened his eyes again to find the same strange looking angel before him. “There you are,” she stated meaninglessly and leant to the side of the bed, moving something out of his sight until the horizontal surface moved under him, pushing his back up, causing an almighty stab of pain to lance all the way down his left side, through his groin and into his leg.

He merely winced, but Dean was already sitting at his side, taking his hand and squeezing it.

When he was upright sufficiently, the woman handed him a glass of water which he thankfully sipped at, coughing slightly, then taking a deeper gulp. “Easy now. Take these.”

She held out a small cup made of paper, which he took curiously. Before he could look inside she announced that she would “be back with the kit presently,” and strode away.

Weakly, he brought the cup closer to his face to inspect the contents. Inside were four small white pellet shapes. He looked questioningly at Dean, enjoying the warmth of his hand surrounding his useless left one.

“They're antibiotics, painkillers and Sanemet.”

Castiel still didn't understand. “You said—” he coughed, causing white hot pain to lance through him again, to which he simply frowned. “You said that word before, Sanemet. And, I don't know what I'm meant to do with these.”

A strange expression passed Dean's face. “It makes so much more sense now, you know, why you don't have a clue about regular stuff here—”

“Stop!” Castiel hissed, his fear blatantly evident in his own voice.

“Yeah— Yeah, okay. I'm sorry,” Dean apologised looking chastised all over again, dropping his head and his eyes. Before Castiel could tell him it was fine, that he didn’t want him to look so dejected, Dean started speaking again, directing the words to his knees where they folded over the side of Castiel's bed—

He focused on Dean's words and decided to let _that_ panic overtake him at a later time.

“Antibiotic. They're pills that stop infection in wounds and things, like in your ear or whatever. Sanemet is a medicine—” Dean looked up to make sure that Castiel understood before continuing. “It basically treats every disease that can be passed on sexually. It's a vaccine and treatment. Prevention and cure.” He shrugged to show that that was all he knew on the matter. “You, uh, you're meant to swallow them. They'll help you get better.”

The man was still looking at his knees, he almost looked ashamed. Once Castiel had swallowed the pills and followed them with the water he decided to distract them both, Dean from his indecipherable mood, and Castiel from the knowledge that shortly, he would have to get up, away from his place with the nice nurse, and dig a 'bullet' whatever that was, and a shard of Iridium from his own shoulder, because he needed to heal, he needed to get out and he could not, under any circumstance risk being found out by someone less… accepting… than Dean.

For, Castiel had to admit, that Dean had neither run from him nor attempted to imprison him himself.

“How does a vaccine prevent and what does it prevent?” he finally asked, making Dean looked up, surprise on his face, before it paled again as his gaze drifted to Castiel's shoulder.

“Dean.”

The human blinked before answering. “Uh. A vaccine, as far as I know— Shit, you're not going to understand. Um. If you take the blood of a person who has survived a disease and put it into someone who could potentially get it, the person receiving it learns how to defend themselves before they get the real version of it. So long as the first person is no longer sick...” Dean looked hesitant. “Er, they're helping the second person learn to defend themselves faster essentially. It’s not done like that now. It's risky, could kill the receiver, or expose them to other diseases, but that method basically stops hundreds of diseases that used to kill millions of people. After the war, when medicine wasn't so good as now, a lot of people got sick and died because they had never had immunizations and vaccines.”

Castiel nodded along thoughtfully. “There was plague on my world,” he grunted out, so low that Dean had to lean forward to hear his words. “On Hath.”

He stopped, realising what he had admitted. Dean knew he was an angel now, but he wasn't sure how well known the hath were. He looked sharply up at Dean. He looked grim faced, but not surprised, while being intently fascinated, his mouth pulled taut, but his eyes gleaming.

He huffed out a smile at the man before him. “I don’t know how long ago. Generations. We can leave our world. Unlike all others, I believe. So, the people left the world, the healthy, and tried to find somewhere clean to live. They did not wish to go far. One step, two. The worlds were uninhabitable. Then they found somewhere green and lush, like Hath. Only, the inhabitants did not even give warning to leave.” He took a deep breath.

“They took disgust, for they believed us mutants, without Grace. Because to see it—” he paused, modulating his intended words in the light of Dean's intent green gaze. “—Is to show trust; Infants, family members…” He took a leap. “Lovers.

“The menenth imprisoned all hath they found. Their world has an abundance of a substance called Iridium. It…incapacitates us. Tethers our Grace, weakens and hurts us. Our kind were all imprisoned and enslaved and used.”

He looked away, unsure why he was still telling Dean anything. “The last time I saw another hath was my brother Gabriel, who they took from me when I was about forty seasons old. Gabe was about forty seasons older than me. My mother died giving birth to me in that cage. Gabe did not ever see my father.

“I am the last.”

Dean's hand found his again and squeezed before he turned his perplexed face to Castiel's “Seasons?”

Castiel shrugged. “Seasons,” he stated again neutrally. What else could it mean?

“Oh, like four of them in a year? A turn of the earth?” Castiel nodded, remembering the stars and sun's position on some of the warmer worlds they stayed on for long enough to get a sense of such things.

“Huh, you were ten when you last saw your brother? Shit.

“Cas—” Dean began, a different tone in his voice, part pain, but Castiel couldn't figure out why. “Cas, I need to ask you what happened tonight. What you can remember of it. It won't go in the report, but I'd like to know what happened from when you, uh, from when you knocked me out...” Dean was holding half a breath. He looked so hurt.

“I am sorry Dean,” and he was. He did not like to see that expression painted onto the human's face. “I was scared. I am still scared.”

“I understand. What I said still stands true, man. I will never imprison you. I’ll do my best to protect you.”

Castiel nodded, for some reason believing the human with the green eyes fully for the first time. He smiled softly and squeezed Dean’s hand weakly in return, erasing the stab of agony the movement caused him.

Dean’s answering smile was like the sun he had never seen break through the sky on this planet, and from nowhere, Castiel suddenly found he wanted to take Dean out into the sun, to see his skin glow gold in the warm light.

He could feel himself getting weaker, the Iridium in his chest feeling like it was digging in deeper and deeper. But, perhaps to get Dean to help him, he had to offer the man his trust.

He took a deep breath, only stuttering slightly on the catching of the foreign material nestled against blood and bone, and began retelling the events of the day and night.

He told Dean of his fear of being caught and being placed back into a cell, of his decision to find the Complex and warn the leaders there of the war. Dean took a breath to ask more on that point, but shook his own head before he spoke, motioning Castiel to continue, suggesting silently that they would go back to that. He told the man of flying to the empty world, of resting while the sun sank and of his return. He caught Dean's wistful expression. He told Dean of finding himself surrounded. He told him of smiting the menenth.

Dean had been writing throughout most of his succinct and emotionless report, but at that his arm stilled. Castiel looked at him questioningly. “I promised I'd keep you safe,” was his only answer.

Castiel nodded and swallowed,staring at Dean’s still hand, realising that the man was omitting information for his benefit.

Castiel continued, telling him of the weapon, which Dean confirmed was a gun, and described what it was and how it worked. Castiel told him of being _shot_ , then the near miss, of being tackled to the floor and the agony of having Iridium forced into the open wound.

At that Dean stopped again, his arm ceasing to write. He stood and seemed to grow in size as his indignation grew. “You mean to tell me the only fuckin' thing that can genuinely fuck you up is lodged in your fuckin’ shoulder!?” he all but yelled.

“Dean!” Castiel admonished, fretting as he looked around them. One or two heads were looking in their direction, but no especially curious looks were sent their way. Dean swiped his hand through his hair.

“Shit. I'm sorry, I just— They know your fuckin’ achilles heel and use it against you, man! And it's still in you?”

Castiel nodded, ignoring the words he didn’t understand. He had thought it was obvious that the metal was still inside of him, or he would have been healing, albeit slowly—going by how worn out his Grace was—but the bleeding would have at least stopped.

Castiel continued his story, tone flat, stating the facts about the rape. It wasn't exactly a rarity for him, but far more painful, for the short length of time he was conscious, because of the few days he had not been penetrated. His body had been healing, the torn skin no longer stretched and accommodating.

By now, Castiel noted, Dean was agitated once again, pacing in front of his bed. The man was upset, angry, confused, and frustrated. But mostly upset, and Castiel did not understand why. The menenth had never been considerate of the disgusting and dirty hath. The violent journey through the Bridge had thrown them further into madness, exaggerating their lust. It was standard behaviour. Why should it cause Dean concern?

Watching Dean pace made something twist in the corner of his mind, but among everything else, it was inconsequential. He needed to finish this interrogation in order to get Dean to trust him sufficiently enough so that he could leave, remain undiscovered and save this… _fucking…_ planet.

He huffed a laugh under his breath. The human's swear words were nowhere near as effective as the menenth's.

Dean sank on to the bed next to his knees, watching the floor again as if it held all the answers.

Castiel took a moment to watch him. To gauge.

“Dean?”

The man's head shot up so fast that Castiel could not help the tick at the corner of his mouth as Dean raised an arm to rub at the jolted muscle there. “Cas?”

“I need to warn your leaders.” Dean held up a hand and got up again.

“Fuck, Cas, I know. I promise I'll help you. Shit's already going down—”

“Dean!” Castiel talked over him, getting his attention completely. “I cannot be kept here. I need to remove the… bullet, and the shard, but it cannot be here. If they can see inside of me they will realize I am not human.” He made an effort to sit up, causing Dean to fret and hover beside him worriedly. He twisted slightly, so that his wound was facing the wall rather than the area where people walked, sat and lay. Dean's face went white with horror as Castiel reached across his body with his good hand and pushed his fingers into the wound, widening them to open the hole. Even his weakly fluttering Grace, suppressed and held down, shone pathetically from the wound where the Iridium was buried in his body. Dean's mouth dropped into a perfect 'O' as he realized what Castiel was showing him. If someone were to dig around in his wounded shoulder, it would be obvious he was not human, that he was not anything they had ever seen before.

Dean nodded slowly, neither acceptance nor disagreement. “This war is coming now. We do not have time. I must heal now. I must warn the leaders that can prevent an army, worlds and worlds strong, from descending on this woefully unprepared planet.” He paused, fixing Dean with a gaze, which, if he’d had any strength, would have driven Grace from his eyes to emphasise his point. “And I need your help. You are the only one—” he cut himself off this time, not sure how to continue, not sure how the human would react.

He took a breath, daring to take another risk, daring to trust this man, daring to believe telling Dean would be worth it. “You're the only one who will listen, who knows who and what I am, who I can tell from where my information comes. You are the only one who will believe me.”

-

“Okay, Buddy, Okay. Shit— I'll see what I can do.” Dean nodded at Castiel and placed his hand gently on his shoulder, squeezing and pushing him back against the gurney.

Dean was desperate to help this angel. The whole account had been gut-wrenching, painful to listen to, let alone bear. And despite that, Cas had barely blinked when he dug his own fingers into the welt on his shoulder, still oozing blood that would not stop flowing. Dean had been around angels and demons all his life, but Cas’s grace, even subdued, was like nothing he had ever seen.

Dean still couldn’t believe that inside the angel burnt a flickering, frightened looking, iron-strong Grace. He had practically been able to taste it, raw as it was. If Castiel’s wings were like smoke, the tattered, raging blue-white glow within him was the fuel. It had left his skin prickling and his chest wanting.

“Do not go anywhere.” He pointed at Castiel fiercely, hoping to instill through the haze of Cas’s worn out gaze, that Dean would not stand for finding the bed empty when he returned, not again.

Castiel nodded a little before letting his head drop back, the sound of the paper sheet crinkling beneath him loud, even against the noise of the busy corridor. “Where are you going?” he mumbled, before Dean had a chance to walk away.

“Oh,” he whispered, realizing that he didn’t know. The feeling of uselessness was bubbling inside him, making him want to move his feet, to do something, but there was nothing he could do for the angel, not yet. He needed Castiel’s information, but he couldn't very well tell him in the corridor of a hospital, especially one that had deemed a man who had been bleeding from a gunshot wound—not to mention the rape—for four hours, a non-emergency case.

He needed to talk to Benny and Sam. But first, he needed to call Bobby. And then maybe steal some medical supplies.

“I'm going to work out a plan,” he answered gruffly, before turning on his heel and digging his phone from his pocket. He strode down the corridor that the waiting area, and Castiel’s gurney, was next to. As he dialed, he kept an eye over his shoulder as he kept moving, keeping his voice quiet, worried he would be overheard.

“What the hell do you want at this time of the goddamn night ya idjit?” was Bobby's response; the reception as terrible as ever, crackling and popping and dropping out. Dean looked up at the clock on the phone’s dim screen in faint surprise, having forgotten for a moment that it was past two in the morning. “Oh. Sorry Bobby. What's the chance your safe house is empty, and ready for use in about five hours time?”

He listened as Bobby grumbled and he heard the clink of a glass in his sink on the other end of the line. “It's empty. I can have it cleaned up and good to go. Five hours is pretty short notice though boy, how you gettin' ‘em over here?”

Dean sighed in relief at hearing that, for once, Bobby didn't have another angel or demon hiding with him until he could help get documents sorted for them. “I'm driving.” He hung up before Bobby could protest. If Dean took pity on an illegal and sent them to Bobby, it was usually by bus or by bribing someone to take them. Dean never brought someone himself, his job would be on the line.

But, Dean thought, Castiel was worth it.

Dean dialed Benny's number as he casually stepped inside a supply closet that a nurse had just left unattended. He heard the key lock him inside as the call connected. “How you doin brother? I hope your having more fun that I am, paperwork sucks.”

“Yeah, Listen, I need some help...”

-

It didn't take long for Dean to arrange things. Benny would cover for him, using Castiel as the excuse. He had wasted five minutes picking the lock of the storage closet, his belt pouch filled with sealed medical supplies and his weapons tucked uncomfortably inside his jacket.

He bit his lip as he dialed his brother’s number for the first time in months. The last time they had spoken they had argued over Dean’s job, his insistence on trying to stay in the role he had picked to prove himself to his father. Dean was finally beginning to see Sam’s point, although he had no intention of letting him know that. He ducked down another corridor, as Sam answered, sounding confused and irritated.

“Dean?”

“Hey Sam, sorry for calling so late, but— I could do with your help.” He got silence on the line as his answer, and he huffed a sigh, feeling the tension between the two of them, even over the crackling phone line.

“I, uh,” he paused, wondering how to go about convincing his brother to help. “So. There’s an illegal—”

He outlined Castiel’s appearance, and his adamance that he had to warn Earth’s leaders about a coming war. “We need to get the Complex prepared, Sam,” he finished, hearing the earnest tone to his own voice.

“You— You really believe this angel? He hasn’t just lost his mind in the Bridge?” Sam asked, his voice rasping, tired.

“I believe him, Sam.” Dean stated flatly.

“Okay, Dean. Okay. You know I can’t go to the Government with this though? One angel? No matter how rare or well informed, they won’t bother to listen. Why don’t you try with your lot, the police?”

“We have, Sam, it ain’t happening—”

“Try again, Dean, please. You have to make sure that you’ve covered every base… no matter what the outcome of all of this. I’ll meet you at Bobby’s in any case, okay? And we can work out a plan from there.”

Dean grunted but nodded. He had to admit that with the influx of illegal angels and demons on the street, Sergeant Walker might be a little more receptive than usual. Dean didn't hold out much hope, though, and hung up, thanking Sam and telling him to be prepared no matter what.

Pocketing his phone again and hitching up his equipment belt he walked back toward the noisy waiting room where Cas was laid.

Dean felt his heart plummet through his chest and his breath catch as he rounded the corner and found Castiel missing, bed and all—

A weak cough, almost lost in the noisy hospital, and his name choked out from further along the corridor sounded, unfreezing him.

He ran to Castiel, terrified of how pale he had become over the course of the past half hour, how sickly and tired, but so utterly relieved that he had not run.

“I had to stop them from moving me,” he heaved out at Dean's worried expression, brow glistening slightly with sweat. “You shouldn't have been able to see my wings, you know?” he asked in a feeble voice, a bemused expression on his features.

“Oh, shit,” Dean whispered in English, hoping Cas wouldn't hear the fear in his voice. The man looked delirious, his right hand curled protectively across the hole in his shoulder. “Oh crap. It better not be the drugs, man,” he muttered in the Native again, wondering if they had adversely affected the angel somehow.

Castiel's wide soulful eyes turned up to his. “No. Just— Just thinking that it's amazing you're still helping me.” His voice was so quiet, his accent thickening his words as the exhaustion and pain began to claim him. Dean could see he was fading. He had to get moving now.

He didn't have time to worry about the angel's words. Because—no. He knew he _shouldn't_ have been able to see them, and the fact that he did sent fear through him like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.

It wasn't something he could spare the time to think about.

He had to help Castiel.


	11. Chapter 11

Castiel stared out of the car window at the rain, wondering what Dean was trying to achieve in the precinct beyond. His attention kept drifting though, and he found himself just staring at the drops as they hit and melded and streaked down the glass. Dean had told him to keep a look out; he answered his coughed-out questions patiently, no irritation in his tone as he told Castiel what things were. He hadn't told him what he was meant to be looking out for though. Castiel assumed that weak and bleeding men sitting in the back seat of cars were not a normal occurrence.

He glared at the door to the squat building, willing Dean to appear, just like he had done in the hospital. Castiel had had to fend off the kind, stern nurse while he waited for Dean, feigning fear at the idea of anyone but Dean helping with the 'rape kit.' He didn't know what it would have entailed, but she had tried to roll the bed into a room alone, far away from Dean.

He felt like he was waiting to be approached again, for someone to notice him, that someone would somehow know he wasn't human, as if his wings would manifest of their own accord. The anticipation of discovery was making him sick in his already weakened state.

Dean had insisted for some reason that they return to the police precinct. Castiel was convinced that it was pointless, they had quite literally laughed him out of the building on his first attempt, and Castiel couldn't see Dean having more success, even if he was one of them. He had already witnessed the man being insulted by his own kind inside that building once.

But, Dean had insisted, and Castiel was far too weak to be bothered arguing. The man had promised to help, and apparently he was even trying to do so now.

Dean had told Castiel that he did not want to hear his warning yet, despite going to his commander to lay out the information about the oncoming war. He had said that it would seem more realistic if he didn't have every single piece of knowledge, and this way he wouldn't have much to lie about, when it came to protecting Castiel himself.

He had listened as Dean had explained that he had to try this— But if, or more likely _when_ , it failed, Dean had a plan; they would drive and they would see to his wound and they would protect the planet.

-

Gordon's face erupted in laughter as Dean finished speaking. “I— I'm sorry, Winchester. I must have misheard! You— You have received information. From an anonymous source? And you think that there are hoards of fuckin’ angels and demons about to blast their way through the Bridge?” He laughed again, a sick sound that grated on Dean's ears.

“You do remember the Bridge right? In the Complex? Y’know, the highest concentration of soldiers and police that this country has? The world? Even if this fantasy of yours was the truth, which it ain't, they wouldn't have a hope in Hell.” He started chuckling again, and waved his hand in dismissal, already leafing through a sheaf of papers and reports.

Dean scowled and turned to leave, noting the faces of his colleagues pressed up against the window to Walker's office. “Shit,” he huffed under his breath.

“Oh, Winchester?” the Sergeant said before he opened the door to face the music beyond.

“Sir?” he answered with his back still to the Sergeant, trying to keep his voice toneless, empty of the dread and fear he felt.

“You're on suspension. Effective immediately. I don't want your insane theories spread through the station.” Dean simply closed his eyes and nodded, telling himself that it was for the best. At least he wouldn't lose his job when he left for Bobby's mid-shift.

He walked through the jeering crowd, trying to remember that he’d done his best, he had tried to go through the correct channels—

He caught Benny’s eye through the busy shared office off the lobby, opposite the rowdy drunks and whores in the cells. The vamp nodded reassuringly, and Dean nodded in reply, relieved at knowing the Benny was staying true to his word, writing up a report for Dean’s benefit. Their phone call from the hospital supply closet hadn’t been sufficient to convince the demon that Castiel’s warnings were true, but Benny had promised that he had Dean’s back; the report he was writing would ensure that, should anything happen, it would be on record that Dean had done his best.

Walt’s grinning face appeared in front of him, his coffee-reeking breath not wasted, save to simply laugh in Dean's face.

“Fuck you too, Walt,” Dean simply said and pushed his way out of the doors.

He ducked his head into the rain, pointing his steps toward his Baby, and hopefully Castiel within. He wondered how long it would take him to start believing that the man wouldn't simply up and leave at every opportunity. He peered through the darkened glass and felt relief course through him as he saw the mop of dark hair slumped against the window.

He got into the car, pulling his hat off and looking behind him. Castiel's eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, blood still oozing thickly from the gunshot wound, and Dean frowned in worry. The angel was fading, and they had a four or five hour drive ahead of them.

“Come on, Buddy,” he whispered, “let's get you to Bobby's.”

-

Castiel awoke to searing pain. He screamed, trying to jerk away from the agony in his shoulder. He found hands restraining him, one pressed to his good shoulder, another two were pressed one to each leg. “Castiel, calm the fuck down. I can't get the fuckin' bullet out if you're jerking all over the place.”

He calmed a little at the sound of Dean's strained voice, even when the stabbing in his shoulder only got worse. “I'll get the whiskey,” sounded a gruff voice from near his feet. He forced himself to stillness, knowing that Dean wouldn't intentionally hurt him. Castiel steeled himself and forced his eyes open, only to see a brutal blaze of glaring light above him, only eclipsed when Dean's face came into view.

“Heya Buddy. Good to have you back with us.” The human smiled down at him, then frowned and returned his eyes to Castiel's shoulder. “Before you woke up, I felt the bullet with the forceps, shouldn't take long to get it out now.”

“Wait up,” the other voice sounded, an edge to the tone that had Castiel tensing up with more than pain.

When the other man's face came into view—a ragged beard, sharp eyes and a hat perched on his head—an odd hot smell filled the air. It reminded him of the spirits that the menenth brewed and drank, only to fling him around the room harder before mounting him on their soft beds. He shuddered at the thought before screaming again as the cool liquid hit the wound and burned like acid.

“Sorry, kid,” the grumbling voice stated before Dean pressed something to his lips and tried to force it between his teeth. “Relax,” the gruff voice came again as he struggled against Dean’s hand. “It’s a gag to stop you bitin’ your tongue bloody.” Castiel allowed himself to slump against the table, letting Dean push the gag between his teeth.

Dean’s drawn face came back into view in front of the shining light, “Just, please don't smite me for this,” he said, before the searing pain returned.

He could feel whatever it was that Dean had in the wound grating against bone, pushing on muscle. He refused to continue to scream, so he bit down, gritting his teeth as well as he could and closed his eyes, letting himself feel the sensation, but trying to ignore the pain.

He listened to Dean's muttered words and curses, spoken in his own tongue unconsciously. He floated, eyes stinging with the pain and the fumes from the liquid doused over the wound once again.

“Ah hah!” the man muttered as Castiel felt Dean’s probing grip something within himself. He groaned and felt his watering eyes leak tears down his cheeks. “I'm sorry. We're nearly there,” Dean whispered as he slowly withdrew the probe from   
Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel saw Dean’s hand as he brought the item up to look at. He saw, what looked like pincers, holding a small metallic object, flat at one end, brass colored and pointed at the other. He sighed as he realised that it must be the bullet Dean had finally managed to remove, not the Iridium. Iridium glowed silver at all times, even after so long stuck inside his body.

“Halfway there Cas, halfway there,” Dean murmured as he heard the clang of the bullet hitting a surface near his head. His nose burned again at the hot smell of the spirits before, moments later, the burning pain coincided with the liquid sloshing over his shoulder.

He could not stop the sound that he let out as Dean pushed the pincers back into the wound and started sliding them around, methodically in small movements, slipping down the hole in search of the Iridium.

It felt as if Castiel lay on the table for centuries, biting the gag hard, refusing to let one more sound pass his lips. He dared not think about the fact that the shard may be so small Dean might never be able to find it. He opened his eyes, wanting the reassurance that Dean would find it, that he was too stubborn to give up and allow Castiel to die, his body unable to heal with his Grace repressed.

It was bad enough with the eyelet sitting in his ear, but the effect was so much worse with the metal hidden inside his body.

He would die of blood loss long before the wound managed to heal over.

Dean's face swam into view and Castiel couldn't help but wonder what Dean had seen that night, that felt like seasons ago now. He had never consciously seen his own wings, not within his own memory, not even during that first terrified flight. He remembered Dean's face in that moment, at the moment of his own ecstasy, he had looked confused, and slightly fearful. But mostly awed. He realised that now. Dean had been awed, not terrified.

“Did you think them beautiful, Dean?” he asked huskily through the gag in his teeth. Dean ignored him, a bead of sweat running down his brow, a frown of intense concentration on his face.

Yet another shot of searing agony caused his back to jolt off the table with the pain, biting his cheek at the same time as the gag. “S'okay,” Dean hissed as he withdrew his hand carefully once again. The movement brought to Castiel the sweetest, blissful, calming, cool relief as his Grace surged to fill the void the splinter of Iridium had caused.

He briefly saw the gory pincers holding the piece—a cone of silver, glinting in the light—before he passed out, overwhelmed by the Grace trying to mend his wounds and heal his worn out and battered body.

-

Castiel's eyes opened, a dim light meeting his gaze, he groaned at the ache suffusing his body.

“Easy Buddy. Your body’s still trying to heal. You've been knocked around a lot in the past few days remember?” Dean's voice came from near his knees, where he sat on the bed next to Castiel.

“Dean,” he croaked down, his throat dry and horse.

“Hey Cas,” the man said, as he bent over Castiel and helped him sit up, his warm hand under his uninjured shoulder. He handed Castiel a cup of water, clear and sweet to his parched throat.

“How long have I been out?” he questioned as Dean sat back on the bed. He eyed it, wondering why he had been put in one once again. Maybe they weren't always meant for the violence that was—almost always—sex; lying on it had been extraordinarily comfortable.

“A little under two hours,” Dean answered, his voice low and steady. Castiel nodded. His body was sore, his shoulder stiff, but he could feel his Grace beginning to recover slowly, beginning, once again, to knit the wounds of his behind together, sealing the bullet hole in his shoulder.

“So, my brother’s maybe another hour out. He's coming here to help, just like Bobby is already helping. You can trust them both Cas, I trust them with my life and your secret will be safe with both of them.” Dean’s green eyes met Castiel's and all he could read there was the man's need to convince Castiel of his honesty.

Castiel nodded again, sipping slowly at the water where he sat up on the cushioned surface.

He looked around the room as Dean seemed to consider his next words. He was content to wait; while his Grace took the time to heal him, there was little he could do, and Dean's presence was a comfort. Another strange phenomenon that he could not explain.

“I—uh, Sam, my brother, he's a person's rights lawyer, Cas. He's the one who convinced me to try again at the precinct. He called while you were out. He's going to help, but, we need to know that full story now. I know you're exhausted man, but I'm here, and listening. For once. So can you? Tell me?”

Castiel slumped slightly in relief, pleased that Dean was voluntarily keeping to his word about listening to the warnings he had been trying to tell for days.

He squirmed to get comfortable, to lean against the wall behind him, rather than try to keep himself upright before he opened his mouth to speak. Dean helped him, but then sat still, expectantly, waiting for Castiel to begin.

He sighed then took a breath, willing the residual pain in his shoulder away. “You already know I was born in captivity, my brother was taken from me when I was fort— er, ten, years old.” He took another fortifying breath. To make Dean understand fully, he would have to give context to his words. “I was essentially kept, up until I was about sixty seasons, as a… a pet? If I was good, I was treated well. I served food, fetched, carried, washed, cleaned and clothed my captors.”

Dean was tense next to him, a solid warmth that offered him strength. “Once Gabe was taken, the treatment got rougher, but nothing in comparison to what happened after I hit the change—became an adult. I think it was the day after my second sleeping orgasm that they put me on the bed. The alpha took me. Roughly.”

He swallowed, feeling nauseous at the memories he did his best to ignore. Dean looked far more sickened; he was pale and shaking.

“From then on I was no longer used as a pet, I was only brought out of the cage to be fucked. Mostly by the alpha, but sometimes his lackeys, or allied demons and angels. Sometimes they brought in slaves or prisoners and watched. They were violent—” He paused, realising that _that_ information wasn't relevant. “Anyway. I was kept in a cage in the alpha’s chambers and basically completely ignored unless someone was aroused, which was frequently.” He drew in another huge breath.

“Because I was kept close and ignored—I listened. Gabe, before he was taken, taught me many things, everything he knew, passed on from our mother and father, but mostly he instilled the fact in me that I must never give up. I must always strive to escape. In order to do that I had to learn more, I had to learn from the menenth, I had to pay attention, I had to plan. I had to be ready to escape at any given moment. So, I did. I learned all the languages that I could, and I listened to their planning.”

He looked up at Dean, his gaze solid, unflinching in the face of Dean's terrible sadness on his behalf.

“I was imprisoned not just within a cage, but with manacles, around my ankles and wrists, mostly my hands were tied behind my back. I also had an eyelet punched through my ear when I was a small child. It was of Iridium. It was toothed, so that you could not remove it.” He half smiled, and cocked his head to the side where his mangled ear was, no longer wrapped in bandages, but taut and hot feeling. “Well, not unless you're incredibly determined.” He had to admit, he was mildly proud, despite the mutilation he had done to himself.

“I had an opportunity, and I took it. A guard had come to feed me, the room was empty otherwise. As often happened, he decided to take his pleasure of me before leaving. He had just finished up, when he unlocked my chains to re-lock them at my front so that I could eat. He was still dazed, and panicking because he could hear the alpha returning. I waited until he had removed the cuff before I hit him, hard.” He smiled faintly at the memory, dwelling for the first time on how good it had felt to finally retaliate.

“I knocked him out and unlocked the other cuff with his keys. I tore out the eyelet, taking most of my ear with it, it would seem. It was then that the alpha and his retinue returned to the room."

He huffed a laugh, thinking of all the hours he had spent practicing the next part, the part that had allowed him to escape. The hours spent thinking it was entirely pointless. “The cuffs had studs of Iridium inside of them. Almost all of the time, one part or another would be in contact with my skin. I couldn't stop them from touching the skin on my wrists, but, if I held them correctly, I could prevent the Iridium from touching the skin on my ankles.”

He inspected his wrists, the welts from years of contact now fading to flat red scars. “That was what you pulled from my chest. One of the studs—removed from a set of cuffs,” he huffed out another sigh. “Because Iridium inhibits a hath's Grace, I was able to fly, for the first time ever, and leave the cuffs behind, because the Grace couldn't take them, but they no longer touched my skin so couldn't prevent me from leaving.

“And, that's when you found me. I flew, completely uncontrolled because I had never used my wings before, but I made it to Earth. To warn you all.”

Dean’s jaw was gritted, a tick moving in his eye, but they widened in awe the moment Castiel mentioned his flight. “So that's why you had those bruises? They're your flight muscles?”

Castiel nodded, watching Dean's face shift back to one of tight worry. “So, now I know _why_ , can you tell me _what’s_ coming?” Dean asked, voice as grim as his expression.


	12. Chapter 12

“It won't work!” Sam's voice broke through the argument as he threw his hands up in the air. “You wanted me here for a reason, and this is it! Just going up to the front door, knocking, and saying 'would you kindly prepare for war?' is not going to help!” Dean watched his younger brother pace the room, his suit crumpled from his long drive.

“They will laugh in our faces, just like they laughed at you, Dean, when you tried to tell your boss!” Dean flopped onto the couch in defeat. They had been talking around and around in circles, only breaking to eat something when Castiel had appeared from the cellar, where the hidden rooms of Bobby's safe house were located.

The angel now sat hunched on the only armchair, his legs tucked up underneath him, wearing a pair of Bobby's jeans and a flannel, buttoned up, showing the collar bones on his injured shoulder where the shirt sat wide on his much slimmer frame. He was picking slowly at the sandwiches Bobby had made, all the produce taken straight from his farm.

“So what's your plan then, wonder boy?” Dean asked Sam, receiving a scrunched up expression from the lawyer that shouted 'put upon younger brother' from across the room.

Dean’s eyes tracked Castiel as he set aside his food and shuffled over to Bobby, where he was sat behind his desk, flicking slowly through another of his off-world tomes, given in thanks from a desperate refugee. “My plan, Dean,” Sam continued, “is to talk our way in, and shut down the Bridge.”

That halted Dean’s thoughts in their tracks and captured his complete attention, dragging his eyes from the bend of Castiel's neck as he read over Bobby's shoulder.

“I— Wait. What?”

“I work there Dean. I can almost certainly get all of us in the building.” Even Castiel and Bobby were looking at Sam intently. “There are huge banks of machines that control the Bridge, make it safe, make it stable. Some of them control destination and things like that, some force the in-comers to certain sections so there aren't collisions, etc.” Sam was standing tall now, his lawyers’ voice in full flow as he made eye contact with each one of them in turn.

“I could try and speak to Frank inside. He works in Tech, so does Ash. They’re like me— not exactly proponents of the Government. They could let us know where we need to get to in order to shut it down. If the Bridge isn't working, how could anyone come through?”

Dean shrugged and looked at the other two. Bobby pulled a face and Castiel remained blank faced and considering.

“People would still be able to come through, boy,” Bobby began, no judgement in his tone. “But, even with the complex's on the other Accord planets, they’d have far less chance o’ making it here safely. They’re gonna overshoot, get hurt, go mad. Not that mad'll stop 'em fightin'.” He flicked through the book some more, rubbing a hand across his face.

“It needs to be overloaded too,” Bobby continued. He twisted in his seat to look at Castiel who still stood behind him. The angel's eyes widened and he stepped back a little at the calculating look on Bobby's face.

“What do you intend?” Castiel asked, his voice still raspy and deep. Dean couldn't help but smile at the sound.

“You reckon you can smite it?” Bobby's face was deadly serious even as Sam let out a little gasp. Dean snorted.

The angel tilted his head a little as he gazed blankly, considering. “My Grace is still weak, but assuming I can touch the Bridge, I think I could. I don't know if I would be powerful enough to destroy or disable something so massive—so powerful—though. I feel—sometimes i think… My Grace might draw energy from my surroundings? But I don't think I would be able to draw anything from the Bridge, not when I'd be trying to use it's own power against it.”

Bobby looked up at him again. “You think it's alive?”

Castiel shrugged, then shook his head. “No… It is… An unnatural thing. Even your electricity and your anti-matter are natural up to a point, made from Earthly things. If—if my Grace works the way I feel—I believe it does, it constantly renews from the energy of nature, plants growing, the sun, the movement of rain.

“The Bridge… It feels wrong. I've been through it many times. Even suppressed, practically non-existent, my Grace was still there, I could feel it—just—but I had no access. The Bridge feels more like a drain of power than a source.”

As Castiel finished talking, he returned to his meal looking spent, curling back up in the chair like an overgrown cat. Dean nodded in satisfaction as he started to eat again.

“So, we need to feed your Grace if we're to close the Bridge,” Sam stated, running a hand through his too-long hair.

Castiel simply nodded, if slightly noncommittally, then shook his head. Dean supposed that was fair. The dude had been kept in a cage his entire life, learned all he had been able to from a sibling until he was ten, and then from his captors. It was surprising he knew as much as he did on the matter. He sighed quietly, thinking it would have been nice to thank this Gabriel, who had primed his brother for an escape he had never been able to make himself.

“My Grace is not, uh, infinite? I believe it has a certain capacity. Even if we were to feed my Grace to its maximum, I believe it would fall short— Although,” he paused, cocking his head to the side as he thought. “My Grace has only been free for...” He paused again, looking to the ceiling as he calculated. “Nearly seven days. So I have no frame of reference for how powerful it may really be. The only other hath I have ever known was in a similar position.” He shrugged again. “I don't actually know how powerful we—I can be.”

“I think I can help with that,” Bobby piped up.

Dean looked over at the creak and crunch of the spine of an old book opening. “Y'all gotta take a look,” Bobby grumbled, turning the book on the desk to face the three of them. Dean rose, the others following close on his heels. On the ancient and foxed paper, delicate and so very thin, Dean saw one of the most breathtaking images he had ever seen.

In perfect, shining gold, reds, oranges, and a blue _so_ vibrant, was an angel. With wings. Wings of floating, smoke-like blue. Wings like Cas'. The angel in the picture was calling down fire from heaven, destroying everything below him in raging, roiling inferno. Dean could almost smell the brimstone.

He heard Castiel swallow, hard, beside him. “Y— You think I could be that st—strong?” he stuttered out, his accent choked and think, his fingers pressed over his soft lips, an expression of fear of his face.

Bobby looked up at the angel, a frown on his face. “Yeah kid. I do, if that's you, and my gyfodol may be a little rusty, but I'm pretty certain that that symbol there would translate as hath, or Wing'ed Bringer of Light, in their language, then yeah. I reckon you could destroy half the planet if you thought on it long enough. Certainly a city.” And to emphasise his point, he stabbed a gnarled finger onto the page.

Castiel frowned and Dean thought he knew what he was thinking. It was taking time for his Grace to recover; how could he possibly be that strong? He didn't look like he had the capability.

“Dude,” he began, getting Castiel's attention. “You flew to another planet, like, seconds after removing the ear stud, while the cuffs were still technically _on_ you. You've been free for about a week, and you've barely eaten, constantly cold. I mean, I dunno about you, but the fact that your Grace is recovering _this_ quickly kinda shows just what it might be capable of. I mean, how old are you?” he asked, for the first time trying to work out the angel's age past assuming it was similar to his own.

Castiel frowned, looking at the beautiful, terrible, scene in the book. “I think I am around one hundred and thirty seasons. I have to admit I lost count. Your method of counting… er, years? It seems superior.”

Dean quickly did the math in his head but Sam and Bobby beat him to it, “Thirty-two and a half.”

“You've not had access to your Grace for thirty-two fuckin' years. It's going to take more than a week! A week without proper meals or heat, or whatever, for it to recover.” He raked his eyes over the scrawny body of the angel before him. “Some sleep and food might help,” he slumped back a little. “But, other than that, what do we gotta do? Put you near a generator?”

Castiel frowned, but he clearly guessed what it was by context alone, so continued without asking. “No. I don't think it works like that. I cannot control it. I am taking energy from the surroundings now, I don't know how to amplify it.” He shrugged again, looking a little downcast.

Sam patted him on the back before going to take a seat on the couch, Dean following close behind, leaving the seat and Castiel's unfinished sandwich for him to return to. “Buddy, why don't you finish up that,” he said nodding at the plate, “and get some more rest. Surgery ain’t a walk in the park, even if you didn't need god damned stitches to close the wound.”

Castiel looked with distaste at the sandwich. “I am not hungry, I am not used to so much food,” he stated, earning twin looks of sorrow and discomfort from Sam and Dean. “But, I will rest, for now,” he said, looking discouraged and worried before he turned and headed back toward Bobby's cellar, and the room hidden down there.

Dean nodded and watched him go, thinking that, with time, the man's already attractive frame could bulk out into something truly breaktaking. He worried slightly for his own sanity if and when that time would come. He didn’t entertain the thought that followed; thinking of a future with the angel was ridiculous, there was a war coming. A war that only they knew of, and only they would be trying to stop.

It was hilarious really. An old guy who grew carrots and helped immigrants get their papers, both legally and illegally. A people's rights lawyer who worked within the complex, a third class cop with no career prospects, and an abused angel, who may or may not be so powerful he could destroy a city. Even with Castiel's supposed powers, what possibility did they have of fending off the armies of two converging races, the ranks filled with their own, slaves, conscripts from other worlds, willing _and_ unwilling? According to Castiel, the armies were vast, and that was only on the bluewards side of the Bridge; the angels’ path through the worlds.

“Dean, you've been up since yesterday afternoon. You need to sleep too. Hell, we all need sleep. Why don't we call it a night and we can move out in the morning? Me 'n Bobby'll keep working another hour or so. We can work on a plan of attack, I'll try calling Frank and Ash. We'll leave to get to the Complex tomorrow for about five. Most operations close down for the night then. There'll be loads of people moving around, going back to their quarters. We'll be able to blend in. But you need to sleep. Your eyes look like someone punched you already.”

“Nice Sammy, thanks. I'm so glad I have your support.” He said it snarkily, but secretly he _was_ pleased. It was late afternoon, he had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, with five hours of driving and a surgery under his belt. He could do with the rest, especially if tomorrow, they had to stop a war.

He sighed and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes when his words were met with silence. “Yeah Sure, Sammy. I'll head up.”

With that he stomped up the stairs to Bobby's rarely used upper floor. He decided not to have a shower, hoping that Castiel would be making full use of the small tank of hot water that Bobby's furnace had been heating. The man rarely used it, but one look at the bleeding angel and Dean's tired face when they had shown up on the doorstep that morning had led him to chuck in a load of wood and rubbish to heat the house. Dean appreciated it as he pulled off his work things and slipped into the narrow spare bed.

He lay awake, his mind a mess of worries, plans, and second guessing what may or may not happen when they got to the Complex. He lay there, eyes on the ceiling until he heard both Bobby and Sam troop upstairs, an hour or so apart. He lay awake as the darkness became absolute, until the heat started to leave the air, until he heard the arhythmic snores coming from Sam and Bobby along the corridor, until he heard the rattling, groaning of the decrepit water tank being forced to pay its load.

He realised that Castiel must have been lying awake too, or had only recently woke up, taking a shower in the dead of the night.

Dean didn't really think as he got out of bed, pushing the covers down and shivering in the cool air. He silently padded down the hall, bare chested and bare footed, a pair of old sleep pants pulled up his hips. He made it down the stairs, sticking to the sides to avoid the creaking of the old wood. He slipped through the lounge and kitchen, lightly jogging down the metal stairs to the basement, only making odd ringing noises as his weight moved from each foot on to the next. In the darkness below he found the shower-room, lit around the closed and ill fitting door from inside. Opposite was the storeroom where they had pulled the bullet from Cas' shoulder. To the right of that, at the end of the corridor, was the room Bobby had fitted out with the furnace and generator. Inside that, behind a cupboard, on hidden hinges, filled with random, but useful things like friction matches and toilet paper, was the bedroom.

Dean slipped inside, feeling a little guilty all of a sudden, his thoughts catching up with him. Would Castiel want to see him? Why was he even here? To comfort him? To be comforted? All he knew was that he wanted to see the angel's face again.

The bed had not been touched, making Dean realise that, firstly, Castiel had not slept in the intervening hours, and secondly, that he had not tried to. He wondered what the hell the man had been doing all that time.

He sat on the end of the bed, legs crossed under him, a spare blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was damned if he would stand to wait for his… friend, but he was aware of the man's hesitance about beds in general. He did not want to seem threatening.

Dean was staring at the opposite wall, the concrete plain and bland and utilitarian, when Castiel re-entered the room, a towel wrapped around his waist and dripping wet.

The angel's shoulder was a mess of bruising. But the hole where the bullet had entered his body was just an angry looking pucker against the mottled skin. Dean could count his ribs.

“Hey,” Dean said, a half smile creeping up his lips. “'M sorry, I couldn't sleep, and when I heard the water goin' I figured you might want some company.” He shrugged, trying to act calm and casual. “I'm guessing it's all a bit overwhelming, huh?” He asked Castiel, who still stood stock still, eyeing him warily.

Eventually he slumped a little and nodded his head.

“Dude, you need to rest. Come 'n sit down.” He paused, sensing Castiel's sudden tension, noting his eyes dart to the corner where Dean finally noted another blanket in a heap on the floor.

“You know… Beds are actually meant to be slept on. There's no ulterior motive here.” Castiel's eyes went wide, his mouth opening a little.

“That— Really?” Dean nodded.

“That makes some sense,” he finally gritted out, his first words since he had walked back into the room. “Knowing that they aren’t only for… _that,_ does help. A little.” He sidled slowly toward the bed and perched, as far from Dean as he could, on the edge of it.

Dean took a breath, cursing himself even as he spoke the words, unable to hold back. “Um, sex isn't, y'know, actually meant to be bad either, Cas.” He coughed a little, uncomfortable, finally letting go of the knot in his gut at the thought that he had all but raped the man sitting next to him stiffly.

The angel's head turned to him slowly, a bemused expression on his face. “I am aware, Dean. Thank you.” He _smirked._ “I may not have been in a good place, mentally, when we—” He broke off, a sudden rush of red staining his cheeks. “And, I may not have known what to do, or how it was meant to feel. But, I know that what I experienced in the past is not right.”

At those words he slumped back against the wall, clutching to towel to himself, showing a modesty that Dean didn't think he possessed. “I may have been young, but Gabe knew what was coming I think. I assume he went through the same, only he had mother until I was born. He told me that sex is for three things. To procreate, for _mutual_ pleasure, and to show the extent of your love for someone. He said the first and the third were optional, but the second was imperative.”

Castiel's mournful expression flashed briefly to Dean's before staring back at his knees. “It did not take many times— It did not take long to realise that what was happening to me was not how it ought to be, and I finally equated the word rape with what was happening. It made it easier. Somehow. That Gabe tried not to scare me, but to warn me nonetheless.”

Dean decided not to get up and pace, but it was difficult the restrain himself. The hurt and the pain that Castiel must have gone through for more than half of his life—hell, for all of it—was beyond comprehension. And yet he sat there, stoic as fuck. Barely a sad expression marring his face.

“Cas—” he began, but, even though the man turned to look at him with those blue eyes, he didn't know what he wanted to say.

“I… think we should sleep. I— uh,” he started again, but not having the words, he simply lay down on the bed, his neck crooked up where Castiel's body was in the way. He lifted an arm in invitation and Castiel's startled expression was enough to pull a huff of laughter from him.

“Dude. Lie down. We'll get under the blankets together. I might put my arm around you to stop you falling out the bed. And y'know, we'll sleep. Nothing else.”

He made eye contact again. “My promises still stand. So, you don't have to. I can go back upstairs, and I'll let you rest here. Whatever you want.”

He waited, Castiel staring at him, clearly thinking furiously, a frown tucking itself between his brows, until finally, he nodded. Once, minutely, but still a nod. He left the bed and dropped the towel, to which Dean closed his eyes. While Castiel dried off and pulled on Bobby's rejected clothing once again, Dean shuffled under the covers, flipping them back as he heard Castiel's feet pad toward him again on the tiled floor.

The bed dipped and Castiel lay stiffly next to him, but Dean didn't mind. Being close to the angel had him in a stupor before he knew it. He pulled the other man's body close, wrapping his arm across his chest, mindful of his wounds, and tucked his nose against Castiel's neck, just under his ear. The man's damp hair tickled his eyes, but he refused to move, finally comfortable and warm, no longer an itch under his skin. As he drifted off, he felt Castiel's body relax, inch by inch, as his breathing deepened.

Dean fell asleep with a smile on his face.

-

The afternoon light was already dimming as Dean's car shot through a parting in the trees. Castiel's jaw dropped open as they hurtled onwards, finally revealing the overwhelming sight of a non-stop wall filling the horizon, white stone dotted with thousands of windows nestled at the base of the Bridge, awesome in its own right.

“What the—” he began, but paused, mind blank at the vastness of the building.

“‘Fuck’ I think is the word you're lookin' for there Cas.” Dean said, amusement filling his voice. “It ain't as grand as all that. Think of it like a city rather than one building. It might as well be, there are quarters for the workers and their families, schools, libraries, offices, shops. Basically an entire society built around the Government and the scientists all involved in everything to do with the Bridge. Immigration, expansion, The Accord, colonists… Sam lives and works there because of his job, helping out people who come through and find themselves in trouble, mostly because of their powers, don't you Sammy?” Dean threw the last over his shoulder, grinning at his brother, folded up in the back seat.

“Yeah, I help out those who face discrimination for their powers, mostly the psychics at the moment,” he replied, nodding and eyeing the huge building to their front too. “Right now they’re facing people wanting them tagged or identifiable somehow. Some are campaigning for any psychic species to have to wear lead helmets at all times. It's disgusting, they're as good and bad as any other species, and mostly their powers are impossible to use for bad. How is feeding off sexual energy in any way destructive?” The man pouted in the back, making Castiel's lip twitch in amusement. He was so dissimilar to his brother most of the time, but every now and then…

“Yeah, yeah, tell that to the rape victims whose attackers use their need as justification.” Dean responded, a tightness in his voice.

Sam sighed, “I know, but I stand up for them too, you know Dean.”

Dean just grunted, and kept his eyes on the road. They were nearly there and they all needed to concentrate, going over the plan piece by piece, taking the last few moments to fill their bellies with Bobby's over-stuffed sandwiches and drink the water from his well. It tasted much nicer to Castiel than the tepid stuff that had flowed from the taps in Dean’s apartment.

-

“They got identification?” asked the brunette at the entry desk in a sickly sweet voice, nodding at Dean and Castiel who stood awkwardly behind Sam.

Sam leant on the desk and Dean could see him put on his most charming smile. “Ruby—” he began, his voice a low purr. Dean had to bite back the scoff he wanted to make. “This is my brother, Dean, and his boyfriend Cas, I just wanna show 'em around. Surely that's not too bad huh?” Sam continued, as Dean froze at the mention of boyfriends.

He heard Castiel take in a breath at the question, but Dean nudged his shoulder gently with a tiny shake of his head. It was enough and Castiel smiled at him, a minuscule nod of his head just barely visible before turning back to the woman behind the desk, his expression once again solemn. Dean was glad that all the injuries to the angel's face had healed, aside from his ear, which was hidden, just, by his tousled hair. Totally not something Dean had pulled him aside to do gently, just before they began their walk along the wide paved path toward the main North-East Doors.

Ruby hummed and cocked an eyebrow at Dean's little brother in a manner that made Dean want to growl at her, but he restrained himself, just. Castiel had obviously noted his tension, as he placed his palm on Dean's forearm, the contact grounding him a little, remembering that they had to get inside without trouble. Dean had ID, Castiel did not.

“I suppose not,” she tilted her head and eyed Dean and Castiel, his fingers still wrapped around Dean's arm. Thankfully, Dean thought, it looked like a possessive display rather than one of restraint. “Wanna hit up _The Kitchen_ again, when you’re done with your tour?”

“Wild horses Ruby,” Sam whispered. Dean wanted to sneer at the wink Sam sent the woman's way. But she was obviously charmed, a buzzing noise indicating the automatic opening of the wide barriers next to the turnstiles, usually there for those of a disabled or non-human physiology to use.

Castiel did not let go of his arm as they walked sedately through the barrier and Dean jiggled his arm a little, to slip his hand down into Castiel's. The man's skin was warm, his hand soft against Dean's weapon-calloused grip. Castiel sent a questioning look his way before looking down to scrutinize where their hands joined. “Hand holding Cas. It's a thing people in a relationship do—” Dean whispered, hoping it was too quiet for Sam to hear, six or seven paces ahead of them. “Which is how Sam introduced us to the harpie at the desk.”

Castiel looked again and squeezed his hand a little, letting it stay within his grip. “That was not a Harpie, Dean. Harpies are huge and terrifying. They stink. They're unintelligent creatures that live on the Kimiziotuz's planet, if I remember rightly. One tried to attack our cage as Gabriel and I were being taken to the Bridge for transport once.”

Dean just looked at him. What could you say to that?

They walked for an indeterminable amount of time, Dean answering Castiel's questions about their surroundings as they moved through one identical looking white, boxy corridor, after another. At yet another plain door that they pushed their way through, Sam finally came to a stop, knocking twice on an identical door and waiting.

They all held their breath as their contact took their time in answering the knock.

“Who is it?” Finally came through the door, muffled and angry sounding. Frank, then, going by Sam's descriptions.

“Winchester, S, Forty-two, thirty-one,” Sam answered. The door cracked open to reveal a craggy face, all suspicion and spilled soup.

He hummed in general disgruntlement, then opened the door and let the three of them slip inside. “I got your message, Winchester, S,” Frank began, a sneer to his lips. “Here,” he all but spat out passing across a small manilla folder with papers haphazardly contained within, hitting Sam square in the chest with it.

Dean sniggered as he watched Sam fumble to keep the file closed and complete. “Thank you, Frank. I owe you.”

Frank's paranoid face closed in on Sam's looming above him, and poked him in the chest. “Yes. You do. And you,” he turned to Dean and Castiel where they were still stood holding hands. Dean dropped Castiel's palm in the face of Frank’s glare, rubbing his hand against his leg, clad once again in his torn work trousers.

Frank smirked and ushered them out, back into the bright corridor, from the gloom of his tiny office stuffed with flickering computer screens. Dean asked Sam what Frank actually did as they walked to his own office, up a level and along another set of too-identical corridors. Sam couldn't give a coherent answer.

It was four thirty in the afternoon, according to the clock hung on the plain white wall in Sam’s office. The room was so small that it struggled to accommodate three grown men all over six feet tall. Sam shuffled around the room and sat at his desk, looking up at Dean, who was leaning against the door, arms folded, and then Castiel, who stood ramrod straight and nervous.

Nothing was said, but Dean maneuvered his way around the angel and leaned over Sam, not because they both needed to read the information, although it was a secondary objective, but to try and foil any potential recording equipment in the room. Sam knew they monitored all staff, but he wasn't sure whether every room had it, or the ID, or what— Hence the silence. He would need his ID to move through the building, but would leave the ID with Castiel as Dean and Sam slunk into the shower rooms where, even in the Complex, it was deemed poor taste to monitor people, so they could discuss their findings.

As they read through the information and memorised the maps that Frank had given them, he and Sam exchanged looks, confirming that everything Frank had written down was actually doable. For the first time since he’d seen Castiel's eyes crack open again after the surgery, he felt hopeful.

-

Castiel followed the brothers down the corridor, wondering if the endless tunnels seemed as horrifically confining to the humans and other off-worlders as they did to him. After a while of staring at Dean's back, absently remembering waking up in his embrace, he decided to try and use the monotony of the walk to focus on his Grace, to find that fluttering heat trapped deep within his chest, and bring it forth. He stared at the small of Dean's back, mindlessly striding the miles of white corridors, and failing miserably to grip his Grace, to force it, to feel it tangibly within himself.

When he had put Dean to sleep, when he had smote the angel, he had simply thought 'sleep' and 'die' and _willed_ it. That had been enough. He had not even noticed his Grace doing his bidding. His Grace simply _was_ , it was not something he could control like that.

Nonetheless, he continued to try and summon more power into himself, to bring his Grace to it's full capacity, whatever that was. Once only, when Sam and Dean paused to hold a whispered and rushed conversation at a crossroads of identical corridors, the electric lighting above him flickered slightly and he felt the fluttering inside him swell minutely. He balked at the sensation, stepping back in fear of his own body and power, causing Dean to leap after him, a firm hand on his shoulder and a penetrative stare grounding him.

Dean took his hand after that, without a word passing between them.

He found he liked the warmth of his calloused grip.

Not long after that, they pushed open a door, plain and blank just like every other door. Unlike the rest, this one needed Sam's ID to get through it. On the other side was the Bridge.

The sight was not as anticlimactic as Castiel made it sound in his own head. The Bridge. The _twenty mile_ wide (as Dean had informed him) half-sphere of heat haze wavered steadily against the rain, a cone of distortion rising up into the sky beyond the squat curve of it's apex. Castiel had seen the Bridge numerous times in his life, always from the inside of a cage, and it had never looked so terrifying, flanked by a continuous circular wall, many lengths high, a vast space of square-patterned gray ground in every direction, shiny in the rain, reflecting the faint light of the Bridge in the perpetual half-light. In the distance he could see people walking towards the walls, leaving the cluster of buildings grouped near the Bridge proper. They were mere specks, the buildings seeming tiny and insignificant in the distance.

“Shit,” Dean whispered, awe and disbelief in his voice. Sam grunted a noise of agreement, even though he worked there and must have seen it almost daily.

“We need to get to—” Sam paused, staring at the collections of buildings sitting at strategic points next to the Bridge, almost abutting it. “Er, Sector E-17, building forty-two” he finally said, reading the scrawled note on the inside of his wrist.

“There,” Castiel stated, having spotted the huge letter and numbers of the sector painted four windows high on the white curve of the Complex’s inner wall.

“Well. Okay then,” Dean huffed out, taking Castiel's hand again in a firm grip, eliciting a half-smirk, half-eye roll from Sam. Castiel cocked his head at him in question, but only received a gentle smile in response.

It took less time than he had expected to walk across the huge space, criss crossed with cables that led into the fortress surrounding them, and people scurrying in every direction. According to Dean, it was the end of the working day and everyone was trying to get back to their accommodations before the rain fell heavier and the true darkness of night fell. Castiel couldn't see that there was much difference between day and night on this world, with the polluted sky and the electric lights, it always seemed the same to him, but he shrugged in acceptance.

“You okay, buddy?” Dean asked quietly as they stomped across the ground. Castiel’s eyes followed the pattern of breaks between the regular and repeating blocks making up the ground. He nodded, not looking up. “You’ve barely said a word since we entered the Complex,” Dean said, a worried tone once more in his voice. Castiel finally looked up at him, taking in his concerned expression. He thought about it for a moment, before speaking up. “I feel… worried? A bit scared, my stomach is hot and tight and I feel a little sick...” He frowned, having never felt this way— No, that wasn't true, he hadn't felt this way since the first few times the menenth had taken him, forced him to his front on the bed and—

“You're nervous?” He half shrugged, not knowing the word. He thought on it a moment more. “Fear of the unknown, worry that I'll be found wanting some how…” He trailed off again, until Dean squeezed his hand and then let go, immediately wrapping his arm around Castiel's shoulders and squeezing him against his body.

“Sounds like nervousness.” Dean took a deep breath, releasing Castiel. He stopped, ignoring Sam striding ahead of them, pulling Castiel to a stop next to him. “We're doing something, Cas. And well— I Just— I believe in you, is all. Okay?” Castiel nodded hesitantly, blinking in surprise when Dean's lips met his suddenly, softly, his exhaled breath warming Castiel's rain-chilled face. “I believe in you,” Dean whispered again, against his lips as his thumb brushed the contour of his cheek bone. “I—” Dean said, but then stopped, shaking his head, smiling warmly, but with something in his eyes Castiel could not name.

-

It had been disturbingly easy to get into building number forty-two, Dean thought. The place was more of a shack with tin walls and a roof, the sound of the rain a deafening drumbeat on the metal. Despite the two-bit look, forty-two was one of the nerve centers of the Bridge. The corrugated roof and walls were there simply as a wind and rain break, the true purpose of the room encased within large clear plexiglass boxes. One of the few modern productions of plastics, hideously expense, and only allowed for a handful of official projects. One side of the building was open, mapping the same contours as the Bridge, to which it was closely nestled. No rain made it in, and Dean, although never having travelled through the Bridge himself, knew that no rain dropped onto other worlds. He wondered how it worked.

As he looked across to Sam and Castiel, he realised that that was probably one of the projects the Complex was running.

Dean picked the lock and slipped inside the plastic cube; he found the noise of the rain almost totally dampened inside. He looked again at the sheet of paper that Frank had given them, the only one they had decided to bring with them, too complicated to memorize fully.

Sam stepped back from where he had been, next to Castiel, a hand on his shoulder.

Dean had frowned at that, not liking the contact, but refusing to be jealous of his brother. Or jealous at all, seeing as Castiel was the Worlds' most powerful being, had just escaped from a lifetime of captivity, rape and emotional torture, and wasn't _his_. Castiel didn't even comprehend what a boyfriend or a relationship was. So— It was pointless being jealous.

He had already said his good lucks to the angel. In his heart they had been a goodbye too, in case— Just in case.

Sam slipped inside the warm box, ducking his head to fit. They looked up briefly at the angel, who stood bravely at the edge of the Bridge, the warm pulsing gold-purple-nothing color of it throwing his form into shadow, the baggy flannel flapping around his waist in the turbulence that the wall of power before him emitted.

Dean and Sam had a job to do though, so while Castiel leaned his hand _on_ the Bridge, Dean and Sam got to work, tapping keys, pressing buttons in a sequence they soon lost count of, entering passwords and overriding systems quickly and efficiently.

Dean looked up just as Castiel looked behind him, an expression of fear on his beautiful, angular features— And then all the lights went out.

Sparks flew.

A blue glow rose, obliterating the soft colours of the Bridge.

Dean pressed the final button. The huge red one in the center of the terminal.


	13. Chapter 13

Castiel just thought hard.

After he had caught Dean's gaze—something hot that bolstered his confidence—all he thought were the words, and he let the power rise up.

“Die, end, break, ruin, destroy, finish, die, close, desist, stop, die.” He whispered the words under his breath, hoping for more, hoping his Grace would hear him and play its part.

He _felt_ the moment the lights went out, the sparks raining down on him, burning his hand, his cheeks, his scalp. He felt the gushing, rushing warmth flow into him and out again through his hand, gently resting against the strange texture of the wall, like the skin on days old milk. He felt his Grace growing thin again, knowing that he didn't have enough power, that he would fail.

He would fail Dean. And Dean would die.

He almost choked on a sob, but instead, forced his anger, frustration, fear, and— regard? for Dean into the connection, into his smiting. He felt the roiling mass of emotions flow through and feed his Grace, forcing out pulse after pulse of energy, the blue light getting brighter and brighter. He could no longer see the Bridge, either its soft glow, or its swirling colours. Everything was white, hot, he threw his head back and screamed out a challenge, daring his Grace to get stronger, brighter, more, and more, and more.

He felt something crack.

Then he felt the minds of every single person inside of the Bridge.

And there were _hundreds, thousands_ , stepping through carefully, unaware as yet, of Castiel on the other side.

And then the connection was gone and Castiel felt himself flying through the air, barely aware. Wind simply rushing past his ears, away, the blue-white glow gone, left with the jerky uncoordinated movements of the Bridge in front of him.

He didn't expect the pain when it hit. When _he_ hit the metal wall on the far side of the building to the Bridge.

“CAS?!” was the last sound he heard as blackness descended.

-

Dean flew from the plexiglass cube, leaving Sam in the dust, as he ran to the angel who had just been blown off his feet and across a thirty foot long tin room, hitting the corrugated wall with a clang, and leaving a dent before he hit the floor.

Dean skidded to a halt on his knees next to Castiel’s prone form. “Cas?” he asked, his voice trembling.

The angel groaned and curled into a ball, pushing his hands, one palm bloody, over his head. “Fu-huck!” the angel exclaimed breathily, utilising the human's word with extreme emphasis.

Dean's lips curled into a smile. “I'd say. Shit, Cas, are you okay?”

Castiel groaned, but opened his eyes, looking around himself, a little disorientated. “They're coming, Dean,” he breathed out, his voice heavy with fear, full of it.

“But— But we did it,” Dean answered, looking toward the glowing brightness of the Bridge.

“We did something,” Sam's voice came from across the room, from where he was inspecting the Bridge. He must have gone to see their handy work once it was clear Castiel wasn't dead. Dean had to admit that it wasn't the result he had been hoping for. He had expected the Bridge to be a solid lump, stationary, cold, dull, or maybe even gone. But this? It looked almost the same. The colours within it still glowed, but there was something _wrong_ about them, the gold and the purple clashing, the pulsing warmth—irregular, sickening to look at. The surface no longer looked like the mass it had been. What had appeared as steam rising from a cup of coffee in a huge spherical plume from afar, and as a whirling golden mass up close, was now disjoined, stuttering, a jumble of shapes crashing and coalescing. It looked congealed.

Dean bit his lip as he wondered how it looked from further away.

“What _have_ we done?” he asked, looking from Castiel to Sam.

Sam shrugged and moved toward the control terminal in the plexiglass room as Dean helped pick up Castiel, who looked winded, his palm skinned, but nothing worse, miraculously.

A shuffling noise from Sam's direction brought him back from checking his friend over. “I think you need to check this out Dean, you're a helluva lot better at the mechanical stuff than me.”

Dean shook his head. “This shit’s way beyond me,” but he moved forward anyway, back into the booth, trying to comprehend the readouts on the small screens. There was a set of lights set into a panel on the side of the box, a heavy set of cables worming their way from the back of the unit and out through a hole in the wall. He grabbed Frank's notes again, knowing he'd seen them in there, knowing he’d had to press something on that panel to lower the power-something-something.

They’d been trying to kill the Bridge using Cas’ power. Frank and the ellusive Ash as told them that here was no built in way of disabling the Bridge's control, no button, no sequence of codes—let alone a way of shutting off the power of an Antimatter bomb that linked potentially endless planet… Yet, on the panel there were two lights. In scratched and peeling letters, _Bridge_ had a steady green light, ancient and faded, but on nonetheless. Next to it was the sign _Control_ with a red stuttering light, all bright and shiny and never before used. “Shit.”

He turned to Sam, his shoulders bent in the small space, and Castiel, slumped against the exterior of the plexiglass, peering in through the open door. “We've killed the control, it's wild again.”

“But— The tak and the menenth, and so, so many others are already inside the Bridge, they had already stepped in!” Castiel's voice was rising, panic growing.

Dean briefly zoned out in horror, his mind a seething rush of thoughts and emotion. “The tak?” He bit himself off. Now was not the time. “Shit,” he swore viciously.

Castiel continued swiftly, his tongue seemingly loosed by the fear growing tangibly in the tin building. “The others yet to enter haven't been stopped either. They can still cross, the iron chain only needs to the built and placed around each Bridge. It may take a few years, but they'll continue, killing, enslaving and recruiting their way across your Accord planets. But the ones in the Bridge, Dean, are enough! There were thousands of them! They will converge here and destroy everything!”

Deans stepped from the booth and  placed both hands on Castiel's shoulders; he stared into his eyes, not knowing what to say, not knowing how, or even if he could comfort the angel before him.

“I—I don't think they'll all make it through,” Sam began, Bobby's illegal firearm already in his hand, as he stood prepared and ready. “You said the Bridge was unsteady away from the human interference. If we truly have forced the Bridge back to the way it behaved before we worked out how to control it, maybe they'll be flung around, go insane like those leaders back when the Bridge was new.”

Castiel stopped his fidgeting at Sam's words and finally looked at the Bridge, eyes actually taking in what he was seeing properly for the first time. He wiped his palm across his face, rubbing his eyes, and Dean was about to pull his bloody palm away, until he realised that Cas had already healed. It was humbling to be near something so powerful. Castiel looked briefly at Dean, his aborted movement obviously confusing him, before returning his attention to the Bridge. “You are correct Sam. I am sorry I missed it, I think, my, er, head—” He cut himself off absorbed once again with the Bridge.

“They are still coming though. Some of them. Not all, but enough,” he said, his voice sonorous in the empty space filled with the sound of the rain, distant sirens, shouts and yells.

“Well—” Dean began, cocking an ear to try and hear the confusion outside as he pulled another of Bobby's weapons from the holster slung at his hip. “You got enough juice in ya or you want a gun too?” Dean asked quickly. Castiel simply held out his hand, inspecting the third firearm before watching Dean undo the safety catch, mimicking his movements.

They stood abreast in the room, thunderous rain drowning out the sounds of panic from beyond, as hazy grey-green shadows started flitting through the web of cracked lines, jolting colors and throbbing light that was now the Bridge.

A flailing shape—too many limbs—was the first to get close enough to make out, the first to blast through the slightly viscous looking wall.

Dean's gun was the first to fire.

-

Castiel was aware of the strange _pull_ that the Earth had. Each time he had entered the bridge in the past he had felt tug deep in his bones. He’d felt it too when he flew between worlds, wanting to drag him towards its strange neutral soil, where neither Grace nor Wroth had been created. Castiel knew that, this close to, the tug wasn't a choice, to obey or not. It was a force, like that which kept your feet on the earth and made you fall. Even if Sam was correct and the bridge was no longer controlled, no longer steady and safe, the army would still be able to make it though. Eventually. They may not be as fearsome, they would certainly be battered and confused, but enough of them would flow through. Enough of the many thousands he had sensed in the Bridge when it snapped. They would have been sent off, throwing them from Wind-ward to Fire-ward before they would fall through the gaps, or land back here on Earth, some insane and some just incensed.

When the first figure came though, a menenth, Dean's gun cracked out, it's report sharp in the confined building. The noise snapped Castiel into motion, aiming his own weapon at the Bridge, wondering how many were already flowing out into the flat, geometrically laid ground they were stood on, surrounding the enormous rift between the worlds.

Castiel watched in awe as the menenth collapsed, a spurt of blood spraying from her forehead, hitting the ceiling as her head was flung back. She landed half in the Bridge, and Castiel watching in horror as her body was slowly sucked and dragged backward into the shattered maelstrom, the shadow of her body being whipped away too fast to track.

-

Dean raised an eyebrow at the sight of the body being snatched back by the Bridge, making a mental note not to stray too close to its broken walls. From the moment the hazy shadow was pulled from sight, it was as if a spell had broken. Six off-worlders tumbled through, one immediately screeching in agony as they stepped to Earth, directly into the corrugated tin wall, shearing their body in half lengthwise, spattering the ground with blood, only to be sucked back into the Bridge like the first.

Dean stood his ground, assessing his enemy. Three demons and two angels remained of their group. They hadn't even given a second glance to the one that had been killed by stepping out at the wrong point. Although he had never seen the three species in front him before, he could see the malevolence in their expressions. The anger, the drive, the desperation to obey and to kill.

They had already started forward, the armoured angel making her way toward Castiel. The three demons, all with chests glowing red with Wroth through their skin, advanced on Sam and Dean. The fifth, a different kind of angel, looked at his companions, and seemed to decide that the armoured one was clearly a match for the scrawny human-lookalike as it crept along behind the three demons.

Dean raised his arm to fire his gun again at the same moment Sam pulled his trigger. The demons, unlike the menenth, were not susceptible to bullets. Sam's shot went straight through the huge creature’s brain. The demon shook his head, grunted, then moved on, his hands beginning to glow red in the gloom.

Another shot sounded, this time from Castiel. His unpracticed hands missed the angel who crept after him, and hit her armor, the shot rebounding with a 'zing' noise and puncturing the roof.

“Shit Sammy, we can't fight this. We don't have the weaponry,” Dean muttered, getting a grunt from Sam in return. He noted Castiel backing away from the angel, further from his and Sam's position, still firm in the center of the floor.

Suddenly Dean's vision swam, his eyes meeting briefly with those of the imposing angel standing behind the demons. He fell to his knees, vision blacking out, thinking that this was it, he’d barely put up a fight, had done the smallest amount possible to help Castiel and save every person, every world— That was on him, and now he would die.

-

Castiel watched Dean and Sam go down, wondering if he was immune to the attack the angel—the an-hark—was using, or if it just wasn't directed at him. He could not spare a moment to help though, as his own angel took that moment to pounce, a sword raised high, glowing dully with Grace.

He realized that the angel was weak, having tumbled through the Bridge; she was likely a lowly rank in any case, not holding much in the way of power in the first place. This species he knew of old. Cruel and dangerous, a willing ally to the menenth. They were one of the few races that had developed not only proper clothing, but metal armor. His proficiency with the gun wasn't anywhere near good enough to take her on. He could not risk hitting his friends with another rogue bullet.

Despite the roiling of his guts and the tiny fluttering of his Grace deep inside of him, he collected himself. He watched the angel fall through the air toward him as if it was made solid, her battle ready wings spread wide, slowing her descent until it seemed that time stood still. Maybe it had. Sound had disappeared for him, only the angel, her armour red and rusting, existed. He side-stepped her sword, watching the pitted blade fly past him, missing by a finger length. Without thinking further on the stupidity of simply reaching out, Castiel pressed his hand to her forehead, letting the Grace bloom and flow through his arm.

“Die,” he whispered, eyes closing for a moment.

His Grace flared, pouring from the angel's eye sockets, burning her thumping, plated wings as if they were lit on fire.

He staggered back, the smiting having taken more from him than he had expected. Sound assaulted him once again, overwhelming his stuttering senses. A whump of silence cleared the air for a moment, and before he was even aware fully of his surroundings, he was flying back through the air once more at the hand of one of the demons.

This time, when he hit the metal wall of the flimsy building, he continued, the propulsion of the attack sending him skittering across the gray ground in the rain, the banging and crashing of the wall kicking up sparks from the ground where it hit and pinwheeled, caught by the wind.

As he came to a stop, groaning with the pain, the new wounds complaining loudly, he heard a matching groan come from the building, now thirty or so lengths in front of him. He watched as the demon—a tak—who had attacked him, chest nothing but pulsating Wroth between blackened ribs, strode from the dark hole of the room, the building slowly collapsing in on itself behind it. He breathed out in relief as he saw Sam and Dean stumble from the building just before the roof fell in, and he thought dazedly, that the an-hark must have been attacking only their minds and her distraction at his smiting the other angel had lifted the attack.

The tak who had flung him so far, so fast, was approaching him, stalking forward with a terrifying grace to his movement, towering horns rising from his head crackling with Wroth in the rain. He stared up into the demon's eyes, trying to summon his Grace again, knowing an attack would come, but from what quarter, he did not know. It was likely that the demon knew what he was by now, and would hold nothing back, he would attack Castiel with everything he had.

Castiel closed his eyes, trying to find that fluttering of Grace in his belly, his chest, feeling the ground pressed coldly against the graze on his shoulder and the rain beating his face. He was getting so tired of rain.

He felt that warm touch, trying valiantly to re-build, to heal him and fight for him, to protect him, but his Grace was weak and tired. So, so tired. Even his old wounds, the bullet hole and the torn rim of his asshole, were throbbing in pain once again.

He forced his eyes open, blinking rain from them, and pushed himself up onto his backside, wincing with the pressure. The tak was grinning, stalking heavily through the thunderous rain toward him. Castiel realized with hope that the Wroth burning so clearly within it was probably low after repulsing him though a metal wall. He pushed himself to his feet, wavering and staggering.

From the corner of his eye, most of his attention on summoning his Grace once more, planning how to smite the huge and terrible demon, he saw Sam's tall figure stagger backwards and heard the report of gunshots. In that moment his ears finally registered the other noises surrounding them.

There was the heavy troop of footsteps splashing and thumping their way over the hard ground, yelling and shouting. _Orders_ he realised. He could just make out, against the darkness of the sheets of rain and low cloud, masses of people in dark clothing, lined up in blocks. Before he could distinguish more though, his attention was dragged back to the fight happening only lengths from him, backed against one of the small buildings like the one they had broken the Bridge in. His attention, though, was mostly focused on monster approaching him.

He remembered the gun in his left hand, and brought it up, swapping to his right and shooting the thing. He hit it in the head and heard the bullet clang off metal far away behind the demon. Another shot hit it in the shoulder making it stagger and bring up a hand to clutch at its Wroth filled ribs. There must be skin covering the demon’s bones, but even its weakened Wroth burned so brightly that it looked like nothing more than a burning skeleton, horns brushing the low, wet cloud over its head.

From the corner of his eye, once more, he was distracted by the movement and gun shots of Sam and Dean. They were fighting the other tak hand-to-hand, and Castiel had a moment of intense and destructive sadness fill him, knowing that their likelihood of survival was so very poor. At that moment though, with his attention elsewhere, the angel struck. The angel he had forgotten completely about. The angel that crept from the ruined building and circled him. It struck, not physically, but with it's mind.

He felt his head encased in something soft, like the pillows in Bobby's home, and he almost believed he could feel the phantom touch of Dean's lips on the back of his neck once again, until, it seemed to him the world pitched over, so that the floor was the wall, yet the rain still hit him from the sky which seemed to swim, falling down.

Castiel starting growling out a frustrated noise of anger. He was furious. How dare this— this monster attack him. _Him,_ who survived seasons of rape and abuse, who escaped, who managed to find someone to care about, to care about him. How dare this pathetic excuse for a person think to blacken his world once again and take everything from him. How dare it think it had won.

With that, he thought _repel._ Rather than the almost stand-still of time when he had geared up to smite the angel, time stuttered forward. He was on his knees watching the smoke-like Grace encase and run down his arms, the sky rotating around him, then he was upright, his hands flung out, squinting into the light his hand emitted with a huge arc-like pulse. Then everything was white and clarity returned, up was up once more. The demon and the angel were both on their knees, the skeletal form and the white arcing wings broken, twitching.They were slumped in twin heaps either side of him, their bodies already cooling in the rain.

Castiel shook himself, knowing he had to rescue his friends from the two remaining, enraged tak, and get them out of there. His Grace was far too depleted now, and he could not fight again. He felt weak, he was trembling, his vision swimming once again, this time with exhaustion.

He started forward nonetheless, desperate to save Sam and Dean, to get to them before the tak took them, destroyed them. In his distorted vision he latched on to the hazy red blur that indicated the tak’s Wroth, beating out from their skeletal chests.

He stumbled, and fell to his knees, eyes beginning to fill with tears as he saw a lump on the ground, unmoving—Sam. He forced his remaining Grace up, tiny and cold, needing to get to them, to help. He staggered to his feet again, feeling blood flow from the re-opened hole in his shoulder, from his ass, from the cuts on his shoulder from his most recent fall, from his skinned palm. As he got closer his vision coalesced again, he could make out Dean, his short hair plastered to his head, blood smeared on his cheek. Fury rose at that, but he didn't have time to even try and run forward— The demons let out a great roar and one of them threw his arm up, his palm burning hot and red with Wroth, and fired a bolt of molten rock-like-fire from his hand directly at Dean.

Castiel was frozen, white hot Grace mixing with his anguish and fury.

Except— The beam of liquid fire never hit.

Castiel felt doused in ice as he saw Dean Winchester's chest glow with Wroth for half the time it took to blink, then the fire was dispersed, sent in a thousand directions, landing like burning oil and evaporating harmlessly into the soaked air in a halo around Dean and the man on the floor.

Castiel watched in total confusion, terror and betrayal as the not-human screamed in rage— _that_ sound, nothing but human in its misery and grief. Dean’s face was contorted, no longer his as he flexed his shoulders, hands fisted at his sides, and without so much as raising his gaze from the tak's glowing and rapidly heaving chest, he _pulsed._ The air grew thick around Dean, almost solid, then it attacked, blowing outward, shredding both the tak, slewing flesh from bone, leaving the afterburn of Wroth hanging in the air until that too was gone.

Castiel took one moment to stare at the being that was Dean before he cried out in crippled shock and fear at the betrayal. He staggered back from the creature that he had thought his friend, that he had trusted. The same creature that had hidden his true self from Castiel, that had pretended to be good, benign, when he was just as powerful as the evil creatures that had held him captive his entire life.  

Grace or not, he pulled his wings forward just enough, and as Dean's eyes snapped to his, his tears flowing freely, he flew.

-

Dean staggered back as he watched Castiel's wounded expression disappear along with his entire being, leaving, for just a fraction of a second, a rain free gap where he had been standing. Before he could really process that Castiel had run—flown away once again, he felt a tendril of disappointment that his wings had remained invisible.

Then the horror set in. Castiel had _gone._ And _he_ had used his Wroth. Castiel was gone because he saw him use his fucking Wroth, the thing he had hidden since he was a baby, somehow kept in check, with the help of his mother, to the point that even his own father didn't know he had it, and now Castiel knew, and Sam was dea—

A loud and pissed off groan sounded by his feet.

“Sam?!” he yelled over the staccato beat of gunshots behind him, far away and irrelevant. “I thought they’d killed you! Fuck. Fuck!” He pressed his hand gently to Sam's face, pressing around the edge of a slash across his forehead that was still pumping out blood onto the soaked ground.

“Pretty hard to be dead when your brother's chest glows, dude,” he grumbled, pushing himself upright, Dean fussed, helping him. “What the fuck was that?” Sam's voice was irate, and slightly scared, but allowed Dean to help nonetheless.

“Fuck, man. I’ll tell you later, if I fuckin' must, but right now we are unarmed, surrounded by police and soldiers, angel-less, and in the middle of the fuckin' Complex where an army of terrifyingly powerful angels and demons keep dropping through. Perhaps we could keep the heart to heart for later?”

He hissed out his words, furious with the whole situation, as some of those demons stepped through right next to them, heads of black writhing smoke. They had fucking failed and Castiel had run. The army could only keep the newcomers at bay for so long, and Dean could see more and more falling through as he finally took in his surroundings again, looking with disgust at the remains of the demons which had thrown fuckin' molten rock at him.

“We need to get out now Sammy. That is, if we want to live through the end of the fucking world,” he spat out. Sam just gave him a _look_ , grabbed his arm and started running toward the nearest door back through the tall white walls of the Complex proper. The part that, so far, wasn't smothered with the bodies of troops pouring into the rain scoured plaza.


	14. Chapter 14

Mindlessly, Castiel flung himself into the void between worlds, blind and deaf and dumb and mourning a trust, a friend, a being he had _liked_ to be touched by.

When he broke through the air once again he fell to his knees with a sob, more in anger at himself for his own weakness, than with any sense of sadness. He had never been this weak before, not even as a youth with the alpha of the menenth jamming his barbed prick into his virgin hole.

But, not only had they failed; the Earth was lost, and every other planet and species along with it, but he had lost the first person, since his brother had been ripped from him, that he had actually trusted. Now that trust was gone, in a simple wall of force and pulse of Wroth.

That flickering orange-red static glow humming within Dean's chest for the smallest fragment of time was the only true betrayal he had ever experienced, and it hurt like it was the most catastrophic of events.

Basic self preservation kicked in, he made himself stand up, made himself wipe the tears from his eyes to take in his surroundings. He had almost expected the world he was on to be as dangerous as the one he had just left, but mere lengths from the Bridge, the familiar disjoined writhing of dulled color too close to him, all was silence. The tak's home world was dead.

That wasn't strictly true, but it _was_ deserted. The mass encampment surrounding the Bridge was so much wasted detritus rotting in the light breeze. He even saw in the distance wild animals grazing amongst the ruin. He walked slowly, letting his breath return, listening for the tell-tale flutter of his Grace in his chest, trying to ignore the blood still soaking his torso from the reopened shoulder wound.

He sat, giving his Grace a moment to recover before he focused the power and used it once again. He scoffed at the idea of his kind being able to smite an entire city. He could barely fly the length of the worlds without killing himself after smiting two measly beings, how would he ever have enough power to destroy a city? Why would he ever wish to do that? Apart from how useful it may have been in ending the Bridge… But it's not like he wanted to destroy the city-like building that surrounded it, filled with people of all different shapes and sizes.

He stared at the Bridge, watching as occasionally tak were thrown out, landing heavily on the ground.

The first few that had landed on the scant grass as he rested, had nearly had him bolting, summoning his tired Grace. But when they hadn't moved, he calmed, realising that the pull of the tak's home world must have dragged them back, broken and dead, despite the iron chain surrounding the intangible looking Bridge.

They had probably been rebounding inside the Bridge since he heard the first crack, since he, Dean and Sam had ended the human's controlling power over the Bridge's might.

After a time, with the fifth corpse landing heavily on the ground, he finally thought to purposefully raise his Grace. Something about Dean had been familiar when he had seen that touch of Wroth glow in his chest, lighting him up even through his clothing, and Castiel _needed_ to know what it was—if he was correct.

Dean's Wroth had felt the same as the tak's. But so, so much _more_.

He opened his senses, feeling the souls of the recently departed tak lying in the cracked, compacted mud, the slow minds of the grazing beasts off to the east, the sharp attention of the bird-like creatures sitting in the trees far behind him, and the all consuming, humming, background noise that was the Wroth that suffused the very being of this world.

It had taken him until he was around thirty or thirty-two seasons old to ask his brother why each world “tasted” different, and why it got weaker each time they left the world.

Gabriel had shrugged and told him it was the Grace of that planet. He didn't know why, or why they could sense it. Castiel still didn't have the answers, but since then he had noted that each world, and each species, had their own specific rhythm of Grace or Wroth, with the Earth's nothingness humming almost too loudly, enough for other species to feel it's pull, its quietness.

Now, he opened up his Grace and sensed the hum of the world at his feet, and tried to match it to the feeling of Dean when he had repulsed and shredded the tak. He was certain he wasn't getting the two energies mixed up. Dean's Wroth was close, yes, but more, much more that the taste of the tak alone.

He startled, opening his eyes at the realisation that Dean was more powerful than the tak, the tak who professed to be the most powerful of all beings Fire-wards. And they were, he had never felt Wroth beat so strongly from any demon other than a tak, until Dean.

Without another moment's thought, he summoned his Grace and left the empty world and flickered across to the next, spreading his senses far and wide. He felt nothing at all, no life; the world _was_ dead. Then the next, plant life only. The next, animals—no intelligence, the next empty again, then the next, animals, and the next, the next, the next and on in a fear and panic until _nothingness_.

He screamed as he opened his eyes to the lack of world. Blackness enveloped him, deathly cold, sucking, ending, pounding nothingness.

The breath died in his throat as he flung himself backward, back to the _real_ void, the place _between_ worlds, not the painful lack of one. He landed with a thump to the dusty rock of the last uninhabited world, Wroth still sitting in the stone, but no life to make it burn.

He tried to scream again at the fear still pulsing in his veins, his heart was in his throat as he sucked in heaving breath after heaving breath, crying uncontrollably in the shock of the- the _Nothingness_.

He opened his wings, about to throw himself back to Earth, as far from the Nothingness as he could, until reality caught up with him. On Earth, a being that shouldn't exist battled next to his brother's corpse against an army of angels and demons who had abandoned their own worlds to cause chaos to Earth, simply because an accident had opened a permanent rift between worlds. He could not land in the midst of a battle, as weakened as he was, and expect to survive.

He thought for a moment about what point there was in actually surviving, and Gabriel’s face came to mind. And although he hated himself for it, Dean's face was the next, the second reason to keep fighting.

Scowling hard, he roused his Grace for one last push, and purposefully manifested his wings for the first time in his life, spreading them wide and proud on the deserted planet. He caught the vibrating tendril of his wing in his peripheral vision, a blue the colour of the sky at dusk, brooding and violent, suddenly catching the sun, swirling impossibly turquoise, then stormy cloud, then the colour of the aurora in the night sky, all the while contorting like blood dropped in water.

He stopped short, staring at how beautiful they were. Almost gold when the low sun slunk through the clouds and caught them.

He shook his head. He still needed to get away from the Nothingness, it was bowel-wrenchingly terrifying, he needed to be safe and he needed to— He closed his eyes in anger at himself. He needed to finish what he had started.

He tensed, straightening his wings, then giving them one huge beat downwards, another, faster and faster until he rose, caught a gust of wind and was _free._

-

Castiel landed outside of Bobby's house with a pained cry and a crash of screeching metal as he landed on a rusting heap of an ancient car. He had pulled his wings back out of the world before he made the final drop into Earth's plain, but that was not what caused his poor landing.

His Grace was truely gone, used up.

He writhed, squirming on his back as pain shot through him, now too weak to even hold back the tears being squeezed from his eyes.

“What the—” Bobby's voice sounded loud and scared through the yard, “Castiel?”

He groaned loudly, an agreement that it was him, even though he would really rather not have been at that point.

“Dean—” he managed to gasp out, the fear rising in him once again, now he had managed to fly across the barren planet to the right point before throwing himself between the worlds to land on Earth. “Dean is a demon.” He rolled over on his stomach and fixed Bobby with a glare.

Perhaps his Grace wasn't entirely gone— He saw Bobby's eyes widen in the half hearted blue flash that lit him from the inside. “Did you know?” he demanded, scorn dripping from his pained voice.

He watched as Bobby pulled the old and dirty hat from his head, ran his hand through his thinning hair and replaced the cap, slamming his fists on his hips and huffing out a breath.

“I had my suspicions, kid. You wanna tell me why you're here when the radio is insane with reports of a huge battle ragin' at the Complex?”

Castiel growled low in his throat. “No,” he forced out, but rolled off the roof of the car, a huge dent marring its rusty surface. He dropped to his feet which promptly gave way underneath him, landing him in an ice-cold puddle, hands squelching into the mud.

He nearly let out yet another forlorn sob, but refused. He was down, not beaten, and Bobby had information for him whether he knew it or not. He felt hands encircle his upper arm, pulling him upright. “What the hell you done boy?” Bobby asked before Castiel could fix his gaze on him. “My boys still alive?”

Castiel did manage to look at him then, the wording evoking something in him. This man loved Sam and Dean as if they were his own. And he had deserted them. But then the anger, the loss of trust flared again. Dean had lied, Dean was a demon. Dean had protected himself and his brother's body by pushing out a force so strong it ripped one of the strongest demons alive, flesh from bone from Wroth. He shuddered at the memory. “Dean is. I—I don't know about Sam.”

He looked at the old human's face, care worn, good. He didn't trust him, but he didn't mistrust him either. “I ran. Because I was in fear of Dean. I have never seen anything so strong, Bobby,” he admitted, flat, uninflected, his accent still subtly different to the humans’.

“Can you go back and help?” The man asked, eyeing the blood saturated front of Castiel’s borrowed shirt, his voice withering. Castiel looked down to the muddy floor and shook his head; he could not feel a spark of Grace within himself.

“Come on in then,” Bobby grumbled. “But if them boys don't come back to me, so help me, boy.” Castiel shook his head at the man's idiom, but understood the gist. He hoped that Dean's power was enough to help Sam, and get them out of there.

“So, you left my boys,” Bobby stated as he got him settled into the warm, dry kitchen of his home. Castiel stiffened; the tone had been idle, not really directed at him, but it had been accusatory. Bobby wouldn't ever forgive him.

Ire rose, fury and anger. “I ran for my life, Bobby. I have spent my life r—raped and battered and cut and molested and demeaned by angels and demons _less_ powerful than your precious Dean. He lied, he kept it hidden, he pretended to be nothing more than a human, to what? To get to me? To kill me? To take on this planet? To side with the menenth? The tak?! You think I left them? You'd be fucking right Bobby. I left them because I was terrified.”

He deflated, his hissed and spat words having rendered Bobby speechless, wide eyed and shocked. He reined himself in, noting a dimming to the light in the room, and he realised that his barely-there Grace had once more been pulsing from his eyes.

He stared belligerently at Bobby, waiting for a reply, not truly expecting one and planning his next poisonous words, trying to purge the feeling of having been used, torn up and thrown away, all because Dean was not what he had professed to be.

“T—tak?” Bobby finally asked, halting Castiel's thoughts in their tracks.

“Yes. They are the opposite to the menenth. Demons just as powerful, just as hate filled. They have been working together, stepping from world to world on their side of the divide. They are the most powerful—” He stopped remembering that nothingness when he had gone in search of the _next_ most powerful demon, something as strong as Dean.

Bobby slumped to a chair, rubbing his hands over his face, before getting up in agitation and grabbing two glass bottles from the fridge and handing one to Castiel.

“You'd better sit, boy. You'll want to drink that.” Castiel watched, still standing as Bobby took a long drink.

“Dean ain't Sam's full brother,” Bobby began with a heaved breath. Castiel frowned wondering what he meant. “They share a mommy, but they got different daddies. Very different I'd hazard a guess.”

Castiel slowly sank into a seat silently, eyeing the older man. “A little while before Mary married John, somethin' happened. She came tearing in here, this is when I was still workin' in the Complex with John. My wife had died not long before, and they used to be friends. I'm not sure to this day if she was lookin' for me or Karen. She was covered in blood, crying uncontrollably. I helped clean her up, and she made me promise not to tell John. She was worried that he'd refuse to marry her.” Bobby looked up and saw Castiel's frown.

“She was raped, son. Somethin' awful.” Castiel blanched, not wishing that on anyone else. “Apart from the begging me to silence, and apologising over 'n over, she was mostly mutterin' nonsense until she calmed down and slept. Well, up until now I thought it was nonsense.”

He huffed out a breath and continued. “She kept sayin' his name was tak. I thought it was a mighty strange name at the time, but I figured the poor girl was just babbling in fear and agony.

“I don't know how much you know about this stuff, kid, but people can’t inter-breed. We can try as much as we want, but tryin' to make a baby 'tween two people 'o different species? Doesn't work. There ain't single child on this planet or off it whose parents came from different worlds to one another.”

He nodded as if that was something more than mere fact. But—

“When Dean came along, somehow John got wind of the fact that he wasn't his. Maybe he added up the dates and got the wrong answers, or maybe it was the mess that I have no doubt Mary was still in down there on their weddin' night. But that man didn’t never love Dean, not to his dying day. Mary knew that. Mary knew her husband had this distaste for their first child. She kept him protected. She and Dean spent a lotta time here.

“I watched Dean grow up and I saw some things which didn't make no sense. He would get lost, and turn up on my doorstep, far too far for a three year old to walk alone, or get bullied and they'd find the bullies a town over, or they wouldn't find Dean for hours, he was so good at hiding. Mary would talk to him, low and quiet like. I never heard the words, but it sounded like pleading when he was tiny.

“As he got older Dean closed in on himself. But still, nothin' seemed to touch him. Bullets never hit him at work, when he didn't wanna be found, there was no one who could find 'im. When his mommy died—was murdered, their Daddy went a little crazy, and Dean decided to try and follow in his footsteps, finally wanting his daddy's approval. I think Dean knew he wasn't really his Daddy, but you'd have to ask the boy that yourself.”

Castiel took a sip of the drink, pulling a face at the strong bitter taste while Bobby fetched another from his fridge. “In fact,” Bobby mused as he sat back down. “I ain't never seen him as open as he has been since you been here.”

Castiel looked down at the bottle in his hand, unsure what to say to that. “So, my theory over the years is that Dean ain't fully human, but the only viable child conceived, let alone born, of a demon and a human. And, your face is tellin' me that you reckon that's the truth too. So, tell me.”

Bobby leaned back and fixed Castiel with a glare that matched his own. He quailed a little and swallowed another mouthful of the strange liquid. “He fought off demons, tak actually, with Wroth,” he stated blankly.

Bobby's eyes widened but he said nothing, letting Castiel continue. “What I felt from him— What I saw. When I ran—” He paused, shame filling him. “I went to the tak's planet, to see— Dean’s Wroth felt similar, but different, to their power. It wasn’t until after I had left, after Dean had rendered the tak’s flesh from bone, that I realised his Wroth even had a _taste_.

“When I sat on their ground, I knew it was different. So—” He huffed a breath of his own. “So I went looking for a more powerful demon. There are none Bobby. Every world after the tak is devoid of intelligent life.”

He waited for Bobby to get it, any of it. “You mean to tell me you just cycled through infinite planets to see where my boy came from?”

Castiel fixed him with a stare. “Not quite. There were, I don't know, ten? Twelve planets past the tak’s? And then nothingness.” He looked at Bobby again, knowing he could not get across to the human just what that meant. “Nothingness, terrifying Nothingness, Bobby.”

He dropped another deep breath. “It makes sense that Dean is a— Hybrid?” He queried, not sure what to call him. “It seems unlikely, but also the only explanation.”

Bobby simply grunted and Castiel watched him vacantly as he started pulling books from the shelves. “Get readin' boy.”


	15. Chapter 15

Dean grunted as he was pushed back two paces against his car, finding himself with a gruff Bobby in his arms, squeezing him tight before practically dropping him to the floor to pull Sam into his arms too.

Bobby let go of Sam and visibly pulled himself together with a sniff. “Glad you're all in one piece boys, glad you ain't dead, Sam,” he said, his voice heartfelt and broken. With that, he turned and walked back into his house.

Sam and Dean looked at each other and followed him, Dean limping and Sam holding the cut on his forehead and wincing with each step.

Sam flopped onto the couch the moment he was able, scowling at the wall, and Dean just stood there, finally allowing the despair to hit him. He had held it off throughout their two hour escape from the Complex, mostly against the Police and Army fighting their way in, and the five hour drive back, but now?

They had failed. _He_ had failed. And he had scared Castiel off. _Again._

Wait— “How did you know Sam might have been dead?” He turned to Bobby, who was standing at the fridge, pulling sandwich fixings out.

He scowled. “Where is he, Bobby—”

Bobby shook his head. “He don't wanna see you boy.”

Dean ignored him. “Fuck 'im. If he's here I'm gonna go shout at his stupid face.”

He stormed toward the cellar, hoping that Castiel was down there and wouldn't simply disappear into another world where Dean could not follow.

He threw open the door to the boiler room and pulled aside the hidden doorway to the secret room beyond. Dean stopped short in the doorway at the sight before him.

Castiel was curled on the floor in the far corner, naked to the waist, his back to the door. A bottle of beer stood on the floor by his head, and there were three empty ones on their sides a little further away. A blanket was hitched over his hips and there was a pillow under his head.

His back was a mess of raw red welts, the skin torn around and down his shoulder blades, with black bruising blooming and spreading as Dean watched. He swallowed hard.

“What the fuck, Castiel?!” He yelled, the words and the anger bursting from him. His outburst caused Castiel to flinch where he lay on the floor, but he didn't move.

“I could ask you the same, Dean,” Castiel said, flat, even, calm.

“You left! Again. You left Sam dead— Or, at least I thought that at the time.” At that Castiel lifted his head, hissing audibly in pain, but he still didn't look over his shoulder.

“I am pleased he is not,” he said gently, and Dean realised he meant that, but—

“You still fucking left, Cas. Look, I know what you saw—” He didn't have anywhere to go with that. Even Sammy didn't know. How could he explain something that he was certain would make him a far more hated rarity than Castiel could ever hope to be. His own safety lay in silence. He was usually so careful, but he’d had to save his own life. It had been a reflex, not a choice.

“What I saw was a man who I had learned to trust, the first man I had ever learned to trust, proving that everything he had ever said or done was a lie. You hid your true nature from me.” Castiel’s voice was still flat.

“I hid?! You pretended to be a fucking human until we fucked and you lost control and showed off your plumage!”

At that, Castiel rolled over, clearly wincing in pain, his gaze far less intense than usual. “Me?” He laughed out a sick sound. “I think _you_ were the one who lost control, Dean,” he hissed, before turning his back again, groaning slightly, and groping his hand toward the last remaining beer bottle.

Dean stumbled back at that point, because Castiel’s words were true. He had known it at the time, but he had chosen to ignore it, decided to blame it on Castiel, and then he had got wrapped up in the fact that Castiel was an _angel,_ and forgotten all about his little demonic slip.

He could see things others couldn't. He could see things that weren't there, like Benny's nub-like horns—growing from his forehead, made from pure Wroth—that no other creatures could see, that the vamiir didn't even know that they had. So, it was unsurprising that, during the best orgasm of his life, he let down the walls slightly and managed to see what even Castiel hadn’t been able to see.

“It doesn't matter anyway,” Castiel's voice cut through the heavy silence, defeated and destroyed. “We failed. The world will end. Worlds. May as well drink Bobby's… potent home brew and sleep,” he muttered.

Dean couldn't form words. He agreed, but hearing Castiel's broken voice; deep, mournful, that beautiful accent thickened by the beer, all he wanted was to shake the injured angel and get him to fight once again.

“Fuck you. Fuck you both,” came Sam's sharp and condescending voice, causing Dean to jump and Castiel to flinch, rolling to look over his shoulder.

“This is bullshit! You. Castiel. You ran out on us again, you left me for dead! Wanna explain that one to me? And Dean, how is it that I suddenly learn you’re a fucking demon, care to talk me through that one?”

Dean and Castiel flashed the shortest of exasperated looks at each other before spitting out, in acerbic unison, “No!”

Castiel rolled right back over, and Sam's breath caught and hitched as the angel simply faded out, there one second, gone the next, taking his beer bottle with him, but leaving the blanket to fall in a heap onto the concrete floor.

“Dean—”

Dean barged his way past his brother. “No, Sam,” he ground out, stamping his way up the metal stairs to Bobby's lounge.

He found the old man hunched over his radio station, a set of walkie-talkies lying on the table, hissing and emitting faint swear words from the other end as he fiddled with the dial on an old busted up radio that Dean had fixed for him years ago.

“What did you do to your angel?” Bobby asked, a note of warning in his voice.

“I didn't fucking do anything, Bobby. He's just fucking fucked off and left me, again!”

Bobby stopped what he was doing and looked up at Dean with a confused caste to his face. “Huh? Scrawny bastard stalked out of the kitchen two minutes ago with a fresh beer. Went outside.”

“I— What?” Dean questioned, his surprise ringing clear in his own voice. He stamped over to the window, and glared out into the dark yard, lit only with the lights falling from the windows of Bobby's well lit home. “I'll be damned,” he muttered, spotting the half naked angel hunched over on top of a stack of three cars, morosely knocking back a bottle of beer, the rain drenching his skin and sticking his hair flat to his head. The wounds on his back were horribly obvious and still bleeding lightly. “You could have at least given him a coat Bobby,” he said, a little louder.

“Firstly, when did I get a chance to give him shit? Storming around up here. Secondly why'd I wanna give him shit when he'd just bleed all over it? Kid'll heal quicker than I could clean his pus outta my stuff.”

Dean scowled but he had to concede the point.

“So, what's the news then?” he asked, turning back to the warmth of the room. Bobby sighed and poked the dial on the radio again, snapping his fingers as the static disappeared, to be replaced by an excitable sounding news reader.

“Rufus reckons that the Complex has fallen. The real news ain't sayin' shit according to him—” He indicated the walkie-talkies still hissing with Rufus’s swearing on the other end. “But his contacts have told him that the army is in full effect, and the Government's Police are fighting at full tilt… Seemingly the off-worlders are coming in in small groups, disorientated, but violent.

“Most of 'em, we ain't never seen before, but at the very least the Dist; the 20th degree Red has defected from the Accord—”

Dean grunted at that. “Yeah. Smokey headed fuckers. Never liked 'em. Some dropped through the Bridge, before I—”

“Yeah,” Bobby continued. “Most of them ain't like our tame lot. A load of em can fly, proper shit, like your Boy Friday out there, moping in the rain.”

Dean scowled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, boy, that Castiel can fly proper-like, if he wants to, unlike most of our Accord lot who can hover, or jump short distances. These can do it properly, flying loop-the-loops and raining down fire on our lot, who've only got fuckin' guns.

“The Government has tried to call in off-worlders who want to fight, but they aint having much luck, Rufus reckons.”

“No fuckin' wonder.” Dean mused, as he walked to the kitchen, finally hearing Sam's boots ringing on the metal stairs leading up from the cellar. He saw him flop in the chair next to Bobby and pick up the walkie-talkie as Dean went to the fridge and found the makings of sandwiches Bobby had discarded earlier. He was fucking hungry, which wasn't a surprise, as, what with the driving and the fighting, it had been fourteen hours since they had left Bobby's house in the first place.

Dean finished his task, listening to more updates as Rufus chatted through the crackling line. When he was done, he dropped two plates between the men at the radio table, earning opposing looks of disgust and gratitude .

On his way out the door he grabbed an umbrella, hating the things usually, but allowing that they were useful for keeping sandwiches dry. He approached Castiel, and without even turning around the man asked, in a blank flat voice, “What do you want, Dean?”

He didn't answer until he had rounded the bulk of the triple piled ancient car wrecks, making him huff a little nostalgic laugh for them. Some were so old they even still had gasoline engines.

“I brought you food,” he announced as he looked up at the bare chested angel, perched up high and hunched over the brown glass bottle. He looked ethereal, back-lit by the house, but even in the gloom, Dean could make out the blood still slowly oozing down his chest from the re-opened gunshot wound.

Castiel huffed out a short sigh, and Dean was fairly certain he’d rolled his eyes, but as he slipped off the cars, nine foot in the air and landed softly, Dean caught the tiny smug smile that crossed his lips.

Dean stepped forward and chose to ignore Castiel's flinch, the stiffening of his spine, and simply held the umbrella over his head as he stepped back under it's cover, food completely dry. Castiel looked away, but picked up the sandwich at the top of the pile. Dean simply waited, interested to see how long it would take Castiel to notice that he couldn't eat as well as hold the plate and the umbrella. The man sighed again a few moments later, silently taking the umbrella from his hand and continuing to stuff his face.

“How come you ran again, Cas?” he finally asked, his tone far more wounded than he had wanted. “I—I couldn't break that promise to you, you gotta know that. I would never hurt you, man, no matter what I—” he broke off, unable to finish.

Castiel continued to stare out across the rain-swept junk yard toward the sheds which held actual, working farm machinery. “I have been free for less than two _weeks_ , Dean,” he stated and Dean was worried he was going to leave it there, thinking that was sufficient explanation.

“I spent a lifetime— When I saw your chest glow with Wroth, I realised you had lied to me. The first person I had ever allowed myself to trust, the first person I had let myself care for since Gabriel was taken, and he turns out to have lied to me, and lied to me about his nature, no less. I spent—” He paused, eyes raised in thought for a moment, “Fifteen years being raped, Dean. Cut, tortured— I was penetrated once by three visiting tak at the same time. They weren't powerful, but they were bearing messages from their alpha. And because they asked, the menenth's alpha let them, and he watched. Another time, I was forced to kneel on a table with slaves from many species. The generals were having a party, and whenever one of them felt the need, they would choose a hole. There were puddles of come by our knees by the time they were too drunk to continue. Another time I was tied to the bed for four days, legs splayed. The alpha slept on top of me, inside of me, soft and hard. When he was awake and tending to business, he allowed his visitors to do what they wished with me.”

Castiel finally turned his face to take in Dean's horrified expression. “Dean, I trusted you, and you lied—and I felt like I had on all those occasions. Flayed bare and available to anyone to use as they would. It terrified me. It saddened me.”

He looked back into the night. “I had also just witnessed the reason for my escape—practically the reason for my being—fall down around me in blood and bullets. So yes, Dean. I ran.”

Dean wasn't sure what to say to most of that, who would? But he found one thing he could tell Castiel, one thing to try and regain this man's hard won trust. But it was hard. He had memories, from being so young—before he could even walk or talk—of his mother whispering to him that he must hide in plain sight. Of her begging him never to reveal himself, especially never to his father. So, he had not, even his beloved brother knew nothing until this day.

“I— I'm. Cas, I'm a—a half d—.” He couldn't do it. His mind rebelled, making his tongue fat.

“I know Dean,” Castiel sighed, sadness and resignation in his voice. Before Dean could react, Castiel had the umbrella down, fiddling with the clasp until it collapsed, and a hand on Dean's shoulder.

Dean blinked, a wrenching in his gut, and he found himself standing… elsewhere. On a cool plain, dust beneath his feet, no rain. He looked up, and saw the stars for the first time in his life. He gasped in awe and stared as Castiel dragged him by the hand thirty feet or so across the even ground, Dean's eyes fixed to the astonishingly beautiful vista above him. Before he could even make a sound of amazement, he found himself in the cellar of Bobby's home, guts coiling in irritation again, but warm, in the dry, with a plate in his hand and Castiel next to him.

-

Castiel opened his eyes, and folded his wings down over his back, banishing them back to that other place where he didn't even need to think of them. He dropped the rain-cover and turned to the bemused Dean, standing next to him—his shoulder still warm under his palm.

Dean had neither apologised, nor explained, but with Bobby's words still ringing in his head, and a touch of guilt at leaving him and his brother in the middle of a battle field, Castiel found that he wasn't all that interested in hearing what Dean had to say for himself.

The man's remorse, and his reiterated promises, had filled Castiel's chest. Dean was no different to how he had been every other occasion they had spent time in each other's company. He was still trying to take care of Castiel whether he wanted him to or not, he still looked relieved every time he found Castiel when he left.

Whether there would be time to talk later, or whether the world would be taken by the angels and demons bent on revenge, Castiel wanted to meet his future, his freedom, however short it would be, with new memories, new experiences to focus on. He wanted to place his trust in this man, and although his belief was broken, it was not beyond repair. He believed the words that Dean had said, that Dean would do anything to remove those memories for Castiel. Perhaps the part-demon could replace them instead.

Castiel swiftly turned and planted his lips firmly against Dean's, his hand still firmly gripping his shoulder, the other uselessly swinging by his side, his body thrumming, tense.

Dean pulled away, eyes wide in surprise, his hands up in warding. “Uh, Cas? Whatcha doin'?”

Castiel sighed. “I thought that was obvious Dean.”

“Yeah, no. I get what you're doing. But— Why? I mean, I thought we were kind of mad at each other.  And the last time we did this—I mean, you weren't really on board… were you?” Dean asked hesitantly.

Castiel sighed heavily. He really didn't want to explain, but he could see the wounded expression on Dean's face, and he didn't want the man hurt.

“No. I wasn't. And, I am sorry Dean.” He looked down, not really knowing how Dean would feel about it. Dean made shushing noises and stepped a little closer, tangling one hand in his hair.

He looked up, catching Dean's soft gaze, so close to his own. “It's okay. I just felt like I'd done something terrible that you didn't really want after you—you know, left.”

Castiel huffed out a laugh. “It started a little like that, I was doing it as thanks, but— You made it something else.”

He let his lips curl into a smile, warmth filling his chest again at Dean's answering look. “I want you to make me feel good, Dean. And I want to make you feel good in return,” he stated, remembering his brother's words, before he banished all thoughts of him from his head. “I want to remember this,” he said after a moment's thought, doing his best to avoid fatalistic thoughts about this being a final wish.

“I got you,” Dean muttered before leaning in, and brushing his lips against Castiel's, his hands landing on his waist. He leaned back once again, breaking their contact, ducking his head until Castiel looked him in the eye. “And you will always have me, Cas. I— we—” He huffed out a sigh, his fingers digging into Castiel's waist. “You have to know how much I like you, man. You fucking enchant me.” Castiel leant back this time, taking in the soft expression on Dean's face, the want and desire to lean in again, held back by his respect—he was waiting for Castiel.

He could feel it now, the thrum of Wroth under the man's skin. He hadn't noticed it before. This close to Dean, it had flavour, something tangible in the air. It had always been there, but it had always tasted of despair, desire, concern. Now only the desire was there, the same, but tempered by lust, respect, worry, fear, want, need. Love.

He stumbled back at the realisation. Dean let him go, dissapointment staining his Wroth and his expression.

“No—” Castiel murmured, so completely disorientated. “Really?” he questioned, a smile tinging his lips again.

Dean jutted his head in confusion, “Really what?”

“You love me.” He stated it, flat, covering the hysteria that was starting to dance in his chest.

This time Dean stumbled back, eyes wide. “Huh? What? No! I— I'm not—”

Castiel laughed happily, still able to perceive the raging emotions projected by the power within Dean. Embarrassment, surprise, incredulity, bravado, confusion, acceptance, agreement. He grinned, wide and untainted, and pressed his palm against Dean's chest, where the orange-red glow had pulsed, invisible now, but under his palm shivered the roiling emotions, foremost of which was desire once again. He almost blanched at how strong it was, how much Dean wanted him, but the softness in his eyes took away the fear.

Dean wouldn't hurt him; he believed him now.

He took that step and wrapped his hands around the back of Dean's head, lips meeting lips as his fingers gripped between the strands of his hair. His wild groan filled the air, and Dean suddenly lost control, leaning into Castiel, moving his lips hard, pushing insistently against his tongue, wrapping his arms hard around Castiel, holding him tight and close. The need Castiel could feel should have scared him, but it did not, he could appreciate the sentiment behind the roughness, the want.

“Dean,” he whispered as they pulled away from each other for a moment. His eyes were wild and black filled, but they held nothing but possessive need and lust, a soft warm regard. Love.

Another strangled groan came from Dean as he seemingly lost control again, needing to touch Castiel, but instead of the embrace he was expecting, Dean heaved him up, and, in surprise, he automatically wrapped his legs around the man, lips locked together, smiles now on both their faces.

Dean staggered backward, turning as he went, and inelegantly dumped Castiel on to the bed, on his back. He froze up immediately, but Dean started kissing his neck, distracting him so completely that he forgot everything apart from the hot lips and tickling breath mouthing their way across his heavily stubbled neck and jaw, drawing a keening noise from him and full body shiver.

Dean mounted the bed, kneeling between his legs as he continued to kiss and lick at Castiel’s throat and collar bones, staying clear of the bullet wound. Castel ran his hands through the man's hair, arching his back into the warm ministrations to his skin.

“If you—” began Dean, in between kisses to his nipples, causing him to groan quietly into the silent air of the basement, “manifest your wings, will I be able to feel them?” Dean asked, licking a line straight down to his navel.

Castiel panted, discovering how short of breath Dean's mouth was making him. He could feel his erection pushing up against the trousers he was wearing, Dean's belly arching enough over him not to touch. Oh how he wanted him to touch.

“I don't—don't know” he breathed, not really thinking about it properly with Dean's mouth licking at the line of hair trailing from his navel to the band of his trousers. Dean just hummed and worked his mouth back up, kissing and licking randomly until his tongue was mouthing at the mound of his shoulder. Castiel jerked away, disgust and concern stabbing through him.

Dean simply chuckled. “Being horny clearly suits you, Cas,” he smiled, nodding at the wound. “Or, at least it suits your Grace.” Dean smiled and leant up enough to allow him to look at the wound, now just a puckered scar once more, washed clean of blood in the rain, and glistening with Dean's saliva.

He shuddered at that, and pulled Dean back to him, fixing their mouths together. He licked into Dean’s mouth, deeply tasting him. He tasted of Castiel, sweat and rain. It was exhilarating.

“Oh, Fuck, Cas. Can I— Can I try something? You trust me? You want me? I really want to make you feel good, you— You beautiful fucking bastard you.” Dean panted out the words, his lips close and wet against Castiel's lips. He simply nodded, believing that Dean wouldn't do anything to hurt him.

Dean pulled back, licking at his nipples again before sitting back on his heels on the bed. He looked down at them both, Castiel, naked to the waist, rain and sweat damp, dirtied and bloody, trousers tented at his crotch, Bobby's heavy boots still on his feet. Dean; fully clothed, sweat beading on his brow, lips puffy and red.

“You're beautiful Cas,” he whispered, before trailing his fingers gently down his torso, too firm to tickle, just enough to make Castiel squirm. He pouted as Dean grinned and placed his fingers on the fastenings of his pants, avoiding his straining cock.

“You really think that?” he asked, never having thought about his looks much before, knowing he was repulsive to his captors.

Dean rolled his eyes and threw back his head with a groan. “After a few square meals, Cas, you'll be lucky if I'll be able to tear my eyes off you.” He shuffled back, pulling Castiel's clothes with him, gently lifting them over his erection, careful not to touch him. Castiel groaned this time, in want. “Your smile man, your eyes. That hair—” he huffed a laugh as he pulled off Castiel's boots and dragged off the pants. “You just have something about you. I want you, want to be close to you—” he shuffled back more, bending Castiel's legs up and wide.

He stiffened a little at the position. It wasn't one he had ever had sex in, but being so exposed again, so vulnerable, had his heartbeat escalating. Until Dean's lips touched his crooked knee. “I want to hold you—” Dean licked down the inside of his thigh, “I want to talk with you and laugh with you.” He bit gently at the scarred flesh at the back of his thigh.

Dean looked up, warmth in his eyes. “I want to be the one to make you smile, Cas,” he whispered as he pushed gently back on his knees, exposing his hole completely. Castiel whined in his throat, a confusing mix of want and fear. Dean let go of one leg and started kissing his way down the inside of his thigh again, sliding his other arm under his lower back, raising him, kissing, licking, biting—

Castiel wailed aloud when Dean's tongue swiped hot and wet across his hole. He pressed kisses around it, nose brushing his balls, before licking firmly again, the heat almost unbearable.

The sensation made him forget everything but the fact that it was Dean doing it. He could feel his muscles, torn and ruined by years of abuse, clamping on nothing in want of Dean's tongue pressing deeper.

He felt Dean's mouth leave his hole, but his breath still touched him, warming him as he spoke. “Was that— Was that okay?” Dean asked, pressing a small kiss to his thigh again.

Castiel growled, deep and guttural. “If you don't continue I'll smite you,” he ground out, his voice reverberating low in his chest. Dean let out a delighted chuckle and ducked his head again to lave long swipes of his hot tongue over Castiel's hole, never pushing in, making him _want._ “D—Dean!”

“Yeah?” he answered, popping back up between Castiel's knees, a self satisfied, smug smile on his lips.

“Will— I want— Can—” Dean's face soured a little, and Castiel frowned, wondering what he had done wrong.

“I thought you'd want to—y'know—”

Castiel took a moment to comprehend, but then he growled again. “New memories, Dean. Now, please—”

Dean shushed him again, kissing against his hole before sitting up, letting him lower his legs to a more comfortable and modest position. Dean slipped from the bed and pulled off his top, showing bruises to his torso that Castiel had not known were there. He keened in his throat at the sight, sad that he hadn't even thought to ask if the man was hurt. “It's okay Cas, nothin' hurts,” Dean correctly interpreted. He dropped his trousers and kicked off his own boots, stopping a moment, naked, hard, utterly beautiful, to look at Castiel as he lay there simply wanting.

“If we're doin' this, we're doing it right,” he said in a low voice, greedily letting his eyes rove across Castiel's body. He wriggled in discomfort slightly at being so watched, and Dean smiled, softening his predatory expression. He stepped closer, his cock bobbing, and leaned and kissed him on the forehead before turning to the door and stepping through, oblivious to his nakedness.

Castiel whined and pushed himself up, wondering what Dean was doing. He eyed his erection, wondering if he should follow Dean, staring at the dripping purple head standing hard and proud between his thighs. Before he could even lever himself upright enough to slide from the bed, Dean returned, a small pot in his hand, which, although different, he recognised as lube. “Oh,” he said without meaning to.

“I am not about to leave this, Cas— _you_ —don't worry,” Dean smiled. “Now, shift over. I'm gonna make you feel awesome.” Castiel did as bid, and hissed when his naked skin touched the cold wall alongside the bed.

Dean jumped to the end of the bed, Castiel's hungry eyes following the man's beautiful, soft, smooth and perfectly sized erection greedily, remembering the barbed spiny cocks of the menenth. Theirs were the worst, but the tak's hadn't been much better. Some of the others’ had seemed ludicrously small by comparison, and he barely noticed when they slipped inside. He would notice Dean, and he couldn't hold back the shiver of worry and anticipation at the thought. Dean had clearly enjoyed it when they had been together before, he hoped, oh how he hoped that it would be enjoyable for him too.

He was surprised when Dean pulled the covers up over him, protecting his side from the cold wall, and slipped into the bed beside him, wrapping one arm around his shoulders, the other sliding down, brushing a thumb over his nipples once again, sweeping down his belly and tangling with the hair at the base of his cock. “Please—” he choked off, not knowing what he was asking for anymore, but revelling in the heat of the man's body next to him, in the feel of his hand simply on him.

He groaned with disappointment as the hand left, leaving the bed and letting in a draft of cold air. Before he could open his eyes he found Dean's mouth on his, a happy humming emanating from Dean's chest and another rush of cold air, before fingers trailed down again, then up his thigh before dipping between his legs.

He jerked as instead of the warm touch of Dean’s fingers he felt cool liquid touch his hole. “Sorry,” Dean murmured against his lips, before he dove back in for another kiss.

Castiel groaned as he discovered that the cold liquid quickly warmed, and slickly slid over his hole, like Dean's tongue had, around, and over, around, over, around, in.

He stiffened as Dean's finger slid in, and Dean murmured something unintelligible into his mouth, leaving his hand still inside of him, his thumb just softly caressing his balls. He stayed there, the fingers wrapping around his shoulder gripping him tight and kissing him deeply until Castiel relaxed again, by increments. It did not hurt. _It was Dean_.

It wasn't until he moaned into Dean's mouth almost having forgotten the intrusion in his ass that Dean started moving his hand again, having waited until his kissing made Cas forget.

He slid his finger further in, moving it easily through the ring of muscle, probing into Castiel. His thumb rubbed circles against his balls, his other fingers touching the skin surrounding, massaging and touching everything in reach.

Castiel groaned the moment he realised he wanted more. How was this so good? How was it so different to everything he had ever had before. With his cock only being stimulated by the heavy blankets weighing it down, the heat he had felt the first time with Dean was not able to peak, he could feel it, low in his gut, but there was never enough, always the constant movement against his rim distracting him from looking for more.

He whined into Dean's mouth as the man slid another finger inside of him, and Dean hungrily kissed the noise away.

Castiel lost himself as Dean continued to stroke and rub at him, feeling out the shape of his inner walls and stretching him on two, then three, then four fingers, his thumb all the while rubbing small circles against any piece of flesh it touched.

Castiel was a limp sweaty mess in Dean's arm, almost unable to kiss back when he found Dean's fingers slipping from him. “D—Dean?” he huffed out, more breath than words.

“Hey,” Dean whispered into his mouth, sliding down the bed a little more and onto his back. “You're ready, if you're, y'know, _ready_.” Castiel still lay next to him, eyes glazed, uncomprehending. "I wanna do this right, Cas. You need to be in charge.” Castiel found Dean’s fingers at his waist, gently pushing him to rotate, to roll over, to move on top of Dean, to straddle him.

He felt his eyes widen at the position, but it suddenly seemed so natural, to have the choice, to be in control to that degree, whilst still allowing Dean to fill him.

He groaned, as the cold air hit his back, but the feeling was only good against his fevered skin. He knelt on hands and knees, dipping down to press kisses against the skin of Dean's neck and jaw, finding the smell of rain and sweat addictive. He leaned back until he felt the blunt tip of Dean's cock nudge against his opening.

Dean groaned, opened mouthed, the noise filling the air with his want, his need.

Castiel wanted to _see_ it.

He leaned back, supported only by his knees and let his open body slide painlessly onto Dean's shaft, slick, wet noises accompanying Dean's bitten lip and scrunched up eyes. He would worry that Dean was in pain, except for the burning Wroth, so obvious now he knew it was there, screaming pleasure and want and need and desire and love at him. He wondered if Dean could feel his Grace screaming similar things.

All thought left him then, as his body finally processed what was happening. Dean was frozen, barely breathing, tiny panting little breathy noises escaping him. Castiel was sliding down on his dick, his rim stretched and accommodating; there was no pain, no barbs, no spines, no bony protrusions. Just Dean, his erection; hard and solid, filling him, smoothly, slickly, pushing in just far enough as he sank down fully, his ass cheeks meeting Dean's dark brown pubic hair, the swell of his thigh under the back of Castiel's own scarred ones.

It was— He let out the breath he had been holding, he’d been waiting for—anticipating—the pain, not believing it would not be agony, still expecting Dean to somehow hurt him despite all his words. But it was _good._

“Cas— You're so hot and—” Dean broke off with a hissed laugh, his hips twitching under Castiel's still unmoving body. “How in the hell are you so tight? If that's your Grace… Shit.” His words broke off as Castiel clenched his internal muscles, a smile ticking at his lips at Dean's reaction.

He wasn't sure what Dean meant, but he could feel the fact that he was no longer torn and ruined down there. He doubted he was as whole as he should be, but, somehow his Grace was healing him once again, all over. Even his oldest injuries.

He felt Dean's hands slide up his thighs, and the touch reminded him of where he was, what he was doing. Of how good it felt.

He shook his head trying to bring himself back, he didn't want to be anywhere but there. Dean's hot, hard, silky, smooth heat inside of him.

He pressed his hands against Dean's chest, wanting to see that glow of Wroth again— that _loving_ Wroth. But he settled for touching, _feeling_ that thrumming inside of him.

With the press of his hands came the tilt of his pelvis, leaning forward just the smallest amount. Dean, grunted breathily at the sensation, throwing his eyes open finally. “More, Cas, please, move, more,” he hissed, clearly trying to restrain himself from pumping into Castiel.

Cas grinned, finally comprehending that Dean was feeling too much and not enough all at once.

He lifted up, letting out a small mewl, finally registering his _own_ pleasure.

It felt good having Dean inside of him— But having Dean _move_ inside of him? “Fuck,” he hissed out, not enough breath left for actual words. He slid back down, Dean's hands gripping tight to his thighs, his thumbs rubbing small circles on the hair that grew there. He rose again, his knees already complaining of taking all his weight, and this time as he slid back down, Dean couldn't stop himself from thrusting up to meet him, jarring their bodies together. Castiel grunted and started panting out his breaths.

More thrusts, faster, but never too hard, and Castiel collapsed forward, missing Dean's mouth too much to hold back any longer. He winced and let out a whining groan as something inside of him was pressed, Dean's cock thrusting against it, sending shock waves of hot pleasure searing into him. He heard Dean's huffed laugh before his mouth captured his again, tongue delving into his mouth, his hands gripping him by the shoulder blades, fingers tracing the closed wounds.

They moved in sync like that, Castiel’s penis, erect and throbbing, sitting heavy between their bellies, his balls heavy on Dean's abdomen. Occasionally that amazing searing jolt of white hot pleasure would flow through him, making him throw his head back and bite his own lip, eyes screwed shut.

“C—Cas.” Dean panted, his hips thrusting up at pace into Castiel's rolling body. “Wings. I wanna see. Lemme.”

Castiel opened his eyes and was astounded to see that orange-red glow, deep and fire-like, flickering in Dean's chest, like a banked blaze. The gold flecks in his green eyes glowed.

He slowed his movement, leaning up a little, one palm pressed flat to Dean's sternum. He could see the red glow through his own hand, feel Dean's need and lust. He brought his wings forward to the point he would use them to fly between worlds; still invisible to any other eye, but Dean gasped, and Castiel opened his eyes to see the beatific expression on Dean's face.

Dean reached out, still thrusting up into Castiel's now all but stilled body. He was part raised up, his hips twitching back and forwards, entranced with Dean's reaction.

Castiel brought his wing forward, stretching it out to meet Dean's shaking hand, but the wing passed right through. Dean's whine of disappointment was enough for Castiel to concentrate further and bring the wing completely into this world.

Dean gasped in awe, and Castiel wailed in pleasure as Dean's fingers wrapped around a tendril of his nebulous wings. It felt— _It felt._

It was indescribable to Castiel. Firing off nerve ending he didn't know he had. He opened his eyes to discover the swirling shifting mass entwined with Dean's fingers. He was pulling the wing forward, and Castiel noted that despite it's appearance, it behaved like the wing of a bird, jointed and limited, yet Dean's fingers were being held by the wing as much as he held on himself. It felt like pins and needles and sent a shiver directly to his throbbing cock. He mewled again in pleasure, feeling Dean’s ecstasy reciprocated through the burning Wroth in his chest where his hands still pressed.

Dean's other hand suddenly wrapped around his erection and Castiel had to bite back a scream, as the triple layered pleasure became too much. Dean's hips were snapping up into him, his fingers pulling gently on a writhing wing and his fingers hard around his cock. Castiel clenched down in response, opening his eyes he finally saw what he didn't know he had needed from Dean.

Arcing from his head in twin, branching bolts, grounding themselves on the metal bed frame behind his head, were the sparking, glowing, vibrantly red-orange horns that the half-demon had hidden from him. From everyone.

He raised a palm, his hips snapping as he kept the other on Dean's glowing chest, fingers digging in as he felt the glory of Dean's erection deep inside of him, and the hot tunnel his hand made for his own dripping cock. He grazed his fingers over the shifting bolts, causing them to ground on his hand, like lightening, hissing as it landed and tasting of ozone. Dean gave out a strangled cry, his mouth agape, breath hitched, his body locked, and he came. He came deep and hard and hot inside of Castiel whose body could take no more, the buzzing heat travelling down his arm from Dean's Wroth, the prickling pleasure from his wings, the slick heat inside himself and the flinching pressure on his cock. He pitched forward, covering Dean's mouth with his own as he stopped breathing, and silently convulsed his pleasure, covering Dean's chest and stomach with load after load of hot come, hips pumping, pushing into Dean's hand until he collapsed. He heaved breath after breath against Dean's neck, enjoying the heat sliding from his ass and sandwiched between their two bodies.

“Oh fuck, oh god, Jeez, what the hell?” Dean muttered around panted breaths, sounding completely undone.

Castiel shifted back, not wanting Dean's softening cock to leave him, and Dean wailed, sending another tiny spurt of come against Castiel's wide and wanting hole.

“What was that?” Dean asked, his tone almost scared, but negated by his wide, black and gold flecked eyes and broad grin.

Castiel slid from him, liking the sticky mess between them. “Sex, I believe,” he stated flatly, side eyeing Dean as he settled next to him on the narrow bed. Dean chuckled. “I have never, Cas, _never,_ been made to feel that way. What did you do to me when you waved your hand over my head? It felt like an electric shock straight to my cock.” He paused— “But in a good way.”

Castiel huffed a laugh. “Your horns do resemble lightning,” he said with a shrug.

“I'm Sorry? Horns?!” Dean spluttered.

-

“I have never _seen_ so much come, by the way Cas. Thanks for that,” Dean grumbled as they walked through the doors from the cellar into Bobby's lounge, showered, dried and fully dressed in more of Bobby's pilfered clothes, side by side and hand in hand.

Castiel just shrugged and shot him a small grin, before facing back to the room. Dean followed his gaze into the room he had expected to be empty; Bobby and Sam should have been long in bed.

Instead he was greeted by two flat and grim expressions. “What's up fellas?” he asked, hoping that their less than quiet, earth shattering sex, wasn't the cause of their displeasure.

It wasn't.

“We've found something,” Sam stated.

“And you ain't gonna like it,” Bobby chipped in.


	16. Chapter 16

Dean's heart sank as he saw the expressions on Bobby and Sam's faces.

“How powerful _are_ you, boy?” Bobby asked, making Dean raise his eyebrows in surprise before he could tame his face into an expression of innocence.

“I don't know what you—”

“Don't play dumb with me, kid,” Bobby gritted out, and Dean tightened his hold on Castiel's hand, sealing his lips shut. He’d been anticipating going out in a blaze of sex drowned glory, and now here Bobby was accusing him of—

He sighed. Castiel and Sam had seen him. What was the point in hiding any longer? He looked up at Bobby briefly before shrugging.

“You don't know?” Sam asked in his prissy tone. Castiel's hand tightened on his this time and Dean shook his head, looking at the floor.

“He only just discovered he had horns,” Castiel chimed in in a helpful tone. Dean groaned and felt heat rise up the back of his neck.

“What? You did.” Cas said, innocence ringing true in his voice. Sam sniggered.

“Can it boys,” Bobby grumbled. “Let’s get these two idjits acquainted with the facts from the beginning, huh?”

“Okay.” Sam began, getting up and retrieving a book from Bobby's desk, open, and with a forest of bookmarks shoved between the pages. “Bobby and I spent the evening researching while you two were, er, talking and um, resting.” Sam looked up, with an amused smirk plastered on his face. Dean glowered.

“Bobby came across a reference from the atmableda,” Dean frowned and he could sense Castiel's confusion where he stood next to him. Sam let out a noise of frustration. “For a cop you are woefully unknowledgeable about the species that inhabit this, and the Accord worlds,” Sam groused. “The atmableda are prophetic, Dean. They see in snatches and odd lumps of time, from any number of possible futures. It’s mostly pointless, in all honesty. Bobby and I helped one of them out of some trouble, and they left a book as thanks.”

Dean looked over at Bobby with a raised eyebrow. “Do you never think to ask for something cool, old man?”

Bobby grunted. “Useful, though, ain’t it?” he grumbled.

“Anyway—” Sam said over them, voice raised. “The book is old, very old. Some demon by name of Metatron was a powerful mage. He actually saw whole futures, but no one knew which future they belonged in, so the stories became, mostly just that. Stories.”

Sam looked pleased with himself for some reason.

“And… I assume you have found something in these stories that may aid us in ridding every single planet of the tak, and the menenth, and every other angel and demon who has taken a liking to the power offered?” Castiel asked in a sour tone, clearly thinking little of these prophetic stories.

“Well,” Bobby began, “the text is a little flowery, even for my tastes, but it essentially says that the release of huge and terrible power will open a path between Wind and Fire, Water and Air—” Dean felt Castiel tense at the terms.

“Cas?” he felt the blue eyes—now clear and devoid of the pulsing Grace that had lit them both up so fully in the safe room below—settle on him. “They are the terms we use for the directions within the Bridge. The angels are of the Wind, the demons of the Fire.”

Bobby nodded, bringing their attention back to him. “Yeah, and seemingly he reckons that only an equal amount of power can close it. Oh, and that it _does_ need to be closed, or 'the end will come,' or some shit. Fucker liked the sound of his own voice.”

Dean snorted. “He goes on to tell us,” Sam picked up the tale. “That only the union of demon and 'the Graceless,' met with 'the filled vessel of the angelically divine' would have the power to close it.”

Silence met Sam’s words. Castiel was frozen next to him, Dean wasn't even sure he was breathing. He looked from Castiel's clenched jaw, to Bobby's intense glare, to Sam's expectant eyes.

“And what's that mean?” he asked, watching the two men in front of him deflate, rolling  their eyes in unison.

Sam rubbed a hand over his face, shaking his head with dismay. “It means, jerk, that the offspring of a human and a demon can create enough power to close the bridge when paired with the most powerful angel.”

“So,” Bobby grunted out. “I ask again, kid. Just how powerful are ya?”

-

“Is this really necessary?” Dean huffed, looking around in the rain.

All four of them were standing in the middle of Bobby's junk yard, Castiel looking grumpy and damp and fascinated, Sam looking fascinated and damp and excited, and Bobby looking non-plussed and sceptical.

“Dean, if this… prophecy is accurate, we may have a chance. I am the _last_ hath, you are the _only_ spawn of a cross-species union.”

Dean scoffed, “Lovely way to put it, Cas, thanks.”

“It is worth a try, we have proven that my power alone is not enough to halt the Bridge. If we can close it, stop travel through, then we have a chance to defeat those that are already here.”

Castiel looked so earnest, his face no longer aglow with their 'union' in the small hours of the morning. In the flat light of dawn, his skin looked as pallid as it had before they had slept together. He mused briefly on the healing powers of love making on Castiel's wounds, before Sam cleared his throat snapping him back to the task at hand.

“You shredded two tak, Dean, pulling their flesh from their bones, leaving little more than black sludge and ash...how can you worry about doing something—anything to some junked out old wrecks?”

“And he don't mean us,” Bobby groused.

“Yeah, but, I've never meant to do anything with the power Bobby! Mom always forbade me using it. To save my life Bobby! And when I did use it, it was always by accident! Keeping hidden from kids at school, protecting myself on the streets at work. I never mean to do it. I don't know how to make my powers work!”

“Oh, quit your whining, boy, and concentrate!” Bobby yelled, losing his patience finally and throwing his cold mug of coffee at the muddy ground at Dean's feet.

He flinched and stepped backward. “What'd you do that for, you crazy old bastard?!”

Sam hummed from where he stood next to Bobby, then reached behind him to the bonnet of the car they were backed against, chucking a random lump of twisted metal at him. It clipped his arm and he glared at Sam, “What the fu-!”

He heard Castiel shift behind him, but he kept his eyes on his sly, dishonest brother and the old shit throwing crap at him.

Suddenly a hail of pieces of scrap started flying at him, all from the direction of his family.

-

Castiel felt guilt rise at his manipulation. He had limited powers, it seemed, in respect to telekinesis, but he seemed to be able to draw things toward him. He managed to make them avoid Sam and Bobby who were flinching, but looking slack jawed at the display, and for all Dean's clear annoyance and irritation, he was managing to stop the metal and glass from hitting his lover.

“Guys!” Dean shouted, frustration evident, “Stop! For fuck's sake!” Castiel half smiled at Dean’s mounting irritation at the attack. He could taste his Wroth in the air.

He outright grinned when Dean lost control, the Wroth suddenly a burning static. Dean bowed his head, flexed his shoulders and _deflected._

Not only were the pieces of broken and ruined machinery that had been jerkily flying through the air towards Castiel flung in an arc surrounding his body, but the rotting hulks of whole cars were flung in a circle, outward lengths and lengths.

The rain of shrapnel ceased as the rusted cars hit the mud, and Dean stood stock still in shock.

“Do it again,” Cas all but whispered, commanding, demanding.

Dean's eyes were closed and he was frowning hard. Castiel saw that pulsing hint of orange-red Wroth just glowing in his chest. His own Grace was singing out to join it. Dean grunted and _pushed_ again, sending the cars rolling, toppling from their careful piles into the mud in great splashes and the scream of metal on metal.

“Huh,” Bobby said, unharmed next to Sam, mud spattered all over them. “I'll be damned.”

Dean dropped to his knees, breathing hard.

Castiel leapt forward and ran to him, dropping to his knees and skidding in the mud for a half-length _,_ wrapping his arms tight around Dean, murmuring proud platitudes into his ear. He touched his fingers to the man's brow and listened for anything broken or damaged within his lover. There was nothing wrong, simply surprise and disbelief raging tiredly within him.

“I—” Dean began.

“It's okay,” Castiel whispered, holding him tight, kissing his warm forehead in the rain.

-

Dean was asleep in the cellar room, having refused to go to sleep back in his own bedroom alone. Castiel had waited until the man was breathing evenly before he slipped back upstairs to the other two men.

“He resting?” Bobby growled. Castiel just nodded, not wasting his breath on stating the obvious.

“You think he can do it?” Sam asked, worry furrowing his brow. Castiel shrugged, copying Dean's mannerisms unconsciously.

“He is immensely powerful,” he stated, his voice low and level. “I am willing to try again. If you truly believe this book, this Metatron's prophesy, then I am willing to try again, to try and shut off the Bridge to anyone else flowing through. By now there must be a thousand, more maybe, on this planet. There are many more in the Bridge, even discounting the ones thrown back to their home worlds, or destroyed by the instability of the Bridge.”

Castiel huffed out a heavy sigh, “I am just unsure if Dean's ability to control his power, or direct it in a useful way, is strong enough. I can smite, that has already been proven to work to a degree on the Bridge. Dean's powers are different. He deflects, hides? I don’t know what else. Is this useful? Does he have other powers? Or does it not matter? Will it be enough simply if he and I working together?”

Bobby huffed out an enormous breath, removing his hat and rubbing a hand through his thin hair, before replacing it on his head. “Boy. You taken a look at yourself recently?” he asked, his voice gentle for the first time since Castiel had returned to the Earth, broken and weak and bloody on one of the wrecked cars. He shrugged one shoulder and shook his head, not sure what the man was talking about.

“Since you and Dean had…some alone time, you got yourself healed up all nice and pretty there.” Castiel nodded, aware that he had healed in the intervening hours. Bobby sighed. “Kid, you were broken, bleeding and bruised. Show me your back,” he demanded, no allowance for argument in his tone. Castiel frowned but did as bid, lifting the too loose shirt to reveal his spine. Bobby grunted and Sam gasped. “When you got back here, I'm certain you knew what state your back was in. Bleeding, boy, suppurating wounds, black bruises flowing like wings across either side o' your spine, kid.

“There ain’t nothin' there now.”

Castiel frowned, he had known that, but Bobby's meaning was slowly making sense to him. He turned, still perplexed to face the men. Before, when he had been wounded, it took time to heal. Quicker than humans, yes, but it still took time, leaving red marks and scars. Sleeping with Dean, less than two days after being raped by one of the menenth's barbed cocks, even with his Grace no longer suppressed, should have been agony.

Was it Dean's doing, his closeness with him, physically, or mentally, that was buoying up his Grace, making it stronger, rise faster?

Bobby hummed in satisfaction, noting Castiel's comprehending expression.

“That's what I thought. So no, kid, I aint sure it matters what either of you do, so long as you work together and direct it at the Bridge...” He tailed off, Sam looking at him questioningly.

“That is, if this Metatron's prophesy is correct,” he shrugged and Sam's expression tightened, fear replacing his zealous enthusiasm.

“How much do we know about him?” Castiel asked, wondering if it mattered. The Bridge was already feeding their enemies into this world. If the angels and demons managed to take the Complex fully, from there they would be able to step back outward, just like the humans had, and instead of forming an Accord, however controlling that agreement seemed to him, they would take whatever they wanted, kill who ever stood in their way, enslave anyone they wanted, rape and kill for the fun of it… It truly would be the end of times, for all worlds.

So, whether this was a sure thing, or the slimmest of possible chances, he knew that he would take it, he would throw his life away to save millions and billions of others, and he was certain that Dean would agree, whether he wanted to or not. He would choose saving people, all the people, over saving their own lives.

“Well, he was prolific, that's for sure.” Bobby flicked through the book, a deep blue leather bound volume, picked out in faded gold and thicker than two of Bobby's fists. “This is a compilation of about a third of his works, according to the preface.”

Bobby scowled. “If ya squint, you can see events that have come to pass in some of his blatherings. But, with this kind of work, the way it's written, it’s hard to tell. It may have been, may come to pass, or may apply to a whole different future. One in which the worm didn't turn, or whatever.”

“More to the point,” Sam butted in, clearly having noticed Castiel's confusion at their ridiculous language, “if we decide to do it, we need to work out _how_ to. I doubt we'll be able to walk in like we did before, and on top of that, what's the science of it all looking like? Do we know how your smiting, Castiel, affected the Bridge?” he asked the question of Bobby, who just nodded along as he listened to Sam's words. “Do we know why it only broke the stabilising controlls, rather than closing it completely. Was it simply lack of power? Or the wrong kind? Should you be trying to take power out, or putting it in to overload it?”

Sam's words started to wash over Castiel, the meaning elusive. It was so much easier talking with Dean.

It was Bobby this time who noticed his glazed expression. “Why don't you go keep your boy down there company, huh? If we’re doin' this, then you two are gonna need all the rest you can get.”

“Or all the sex,” Sam muttered under his breath, the comment clearly only meant for Bobby's ears, as the man choked on a laugh. He didn't think it was a bad idea, so he nodded, turned and returned to Dean's sleep warm body.


	17. Chapter 17

Castiel awoke to blazing warmth and suction around his pulsing cock. He whined at the sensation, a spurious thought that Dean was far too good at making him feel good flitting through his mind before he let loose a louder groan as Dean's tongue flicked over the head of his dick. The man's mouth was sinking and rising over his spit-slick erection as he sucked. Dean’s palms lay flat on his hips as, even in his sleep, he had been trying to thrust up into the wonderful sensation.

He needed to see, to look at the man's green eyes. He could feel the fire burning within them both, but it was nothing like the night before. They were sleepy, satisfied and calm, loving and soft. But, Dean's eyes were always worth looking into, he was finding. He flipped back the covers, revealing Dean's sweat covered brow and smiling eyes. Castiel gasped at the sight of his hard, reddened flesh disappearing into the man's mouth. He could feel every time the head ran over the roof of his mouth, touched the back of his twitching throat. He moaned in pleasure, pumping his hips in a tiny aborted circles that had Dean moaning on to his cock.

Castiel was close, he could feel it, no idea how long Dean had been working him before he woke up in a blaze of heat and glory. He wailed as Dean's fingers stopped gripping his hips, letting the small movements grow with each swallow of his throat, each meeting of their eyes.

He yelled Dean's name aloud as the man's finger slipped into his hole, he couldn't even begin to think about when he had coated his fingers in lube, but the feeling was too much. He lost what control he had and thrust hard into Dean's mouth, making his eyes widen, black pupils filling with lust and want. The man’s throat slackened and he held his head still, humming to give Castiel permission.

He growled and started rhythmically pushing up into Dean’s welcoming mouth. Four, five, six thrusts later, and Dean flexed the finger inside him and every nerve ending sang, his hips snapped up and he yelled in pleasure as he came, long and hot into Dean's mouth. Castiel looked down to find Dean's eyes closed, a small frown between his eyes.

With a gasp he slumped into the bed, spent, tired and feeling boneless, astounding. Dean swallowed once again, then slipped his finger from Castiel's hole, and allowed his dick to fall from his mouth. Come was dribbling from the corner of his lips, the sight sending one last weak spurt to jump from his softening dick.

Dean rolled his eyes and sinuously rolled his body up Castiel's, joining his lips with his, the taste of his own come tangy in his mouth. His cock twitched again. Dean rested his body against Castiel's and he moaned in disappointment that Dean wasn't hard. What had he done wrong?

Dean pulled away snickering, “Don’t worry Cas,” he whispered. “You already made me come.” He smiled down at Castiel's confused face and leaned his pelvis more firmly against Castiel's, kicking his leg across the bed with his foot until his calf landed in something cold and wet.

He made a noise of disgust and squirmed out of the way to Dean's laugh. “That's revolting,” he grumbled sleepily.

“You didn't mind it in my mouth, or between us yesterday. And, you make such an awful lot of it,” Dean whined.

“It's nice to share between us, Dean, when it's hot. Not disgusting and congealed on the sheets,” he groused, pouting at Dean's beautiful face. He leaned up and licked a stray tendril of the white stuff from his chin, grimacing at the congealed stuff. “See? Revolting.”

Dean slumped forward laughing. “You're ridiculous, Cas, I love you,” he gasped out around a smile.

Dean seemed to freeze when he reailsed the words he had spoken, but Castiel ignored that, leaning in to kiss him again, licking deeply into his mouth and rocking his spent body against Dean's warm skin. He knew what Dean felt, he could feel his Wroth burning with it, a banked fire in his lover’s chest. It was the same thing Castiel felt too. His Grace sang with his love for the infuriating human, for his smile and his persistence, for his belief in Castiel and his strength, his soft heart and his loyalty.

-

They saw the smear of smoke on the horizon long before even the broken heathaze of the Bridge came into view. When they rounded the bend in the trees, as before, the pine needles dripping from the constant rain. The Complex was no longer the pristine arc of white it had once been.

Scorched, broken down, cracked and blasted. Beings swarmed in the air and on the ground. Fire balls flew, beams of Grace sang through the air. Sound was impossible at that distance, but Castiel could see the dark ranks of soldiers and police swarming the ground, see the flashes of fire from the muzzles of their guns.

“How’re we meant to get in there, boy?” Bobby asked Sam, who sat in the front seat next to Dean.

“Uh, I was going with, run,” Sam answered. “Really, really quickly.”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “Are we going to the place we were previously?” Dean looked up and caught his eye in the mirror, a surprisingly relaxed expression on his face.

He and Dean had spoken at length that morning, after they had showered and dressed, Dean resting against Castiel's chest, between his legs and wrapped in Castiel's arms as he pressed his lips to his hair.

They had decided to take the risk—to use their power combined to try and close the Bridge. It was die long and slow watching the worlds burn, or die quick and fast in a blaze of glory. They had even entertained the idea of winning, of succeeding for a few moments, but decided they would deal with that if and when the time came. They had held onto each other, breathing in sync, in silence, until Sam and Bobby had appeared, telling them it was time to go.

“Pretty much. We need to get to the plaza, somewhere safe enough, for long enough to do our thing.” Sam and Bobby had planned on working the machines again, to try and feed more power into the Bridge. They had gone with Castiel's earlier words that the Bridge's power could not be utilized, and worked with the idea that they had tried before; Castiel had fed energy in, smiting it by overloading it, and they would attempt it again. Feeding in what they could, along with Dean's and Castiel's powers.

“Well, stop as close as you can and I'll fly us,” he said matter-of-factly, earning twin expressions of dawning understanding from Bobby and Sam and a smirking grin from Dean.

-

They stood in the correct spot on the same desert world Castiel had taken Dean to before, when he had moved them from Bobby’s yard to the cellar. Sam and Bobby both looked confused that Castiel just _knew_ where the corresponding spot was on Earth, but Dean had stopped in the right spot three steps ahead of Castiel, and turned to him with a questioning expression, Castiel had only raised an eyebrow and stopped too.

Dean might not be consciously using his powers, but they were innate to him.

He could only carry one of the men with him at a time, and he wondered who he should take first into the 'hot zone', as Dean had called it. They did not know what to expect beyond on Earth.

He started pacing, to Sam's grumbling and fidgeting, while Dean stood and watched quietly, occasionally glancing up at the slightly overcast sky, and watery sun above them. “Dean,” he looked up and Dean walked to him, trust and belief strong in his expression. “Do you feel that? I am correct aren't I?” he asked, hoping Dean could feel what he could feel. They stood close to the Bridge, is cracked facade only lengths from them, about fifty lengths from where Sam stood shifting and Bobby stood still.

Dean just nodded his head. “Here!” he yelled to his family, waving an arm over.

“What?”

Dean frowned at Sam's petulant question and sighed. “This spot is safe, or, well, it is inside a set of...” he looked at Cas for confirmation. “Walls? Barriers?”

Castiel nodded. “I believe it is a room much like the one we were in before, still intact. Although I cannot get an idea of a roof over the space.” He looked up at Dean's brother, tall, fit and strong. He would be able to defend the space while Castiel brought Dean and Bobby through. “You first.”

-

The room was not intact. One wall was little more than fire, another molten and ruined. The roof hung wildly over part of the room. But it was sufficient and defensible, at least for the moment. The room was missing the one major element that they needed; it had no cables, the power source Sam and Bobby insisted were necessary to help he and Dean overload the Bridge.

Dean was staring at the cracked skin of the Bridge while Bobby and Sam poked around the room. It looked like a long disused holding area with benches running along the remaining intact wall, filled with the heat and smoke from the burning walls.

“This aint good enough,” Bobby grumbled, wiping sweat from his brow, “we need power or this is just a wild stab in the dark. We can't do this half assed. N’ ‘specially not with the building fallin’ on our heads.”

“What do you want us to do Bobby? Run out there through the cross-fire and find another building, one with a power supply? One we can feed my brother into properly?” Sam’s tone was pained, near hysterical. His calm facade was clearly just that, Castiel thought, as he watched it crack.

“Yes, boy! God damn it, yes, that’s exactly what we need to do,” Bobby answered, his voice cracking in turn. Castiel turned to Dean, but he still only stared at the Bridge, its ugly congealed colors sickening to look at.

A great shrieking filled the room and from the molten gap where the wall used to be stepped a demon, wings aflame with Wroth as he stepped over the lumps of burning metal. The heat was ferocious. Bobby levelled his shotgun before the rest of them even had a moment to think and shot the creature through the head. It dropped, thankfully, with the perfectly aimed shot, its head vanishing in a plume of blood and gore.

“Shit,” Dean swore, scowling, silhouetted by the Bridge. He walked quickly toward Castiel and took his hand. “Bobby is right, Sam. We need to end this now. This is just the first wave remember? Cas has told us just how many are waiting to come through— And if they’re already on an Accord planet, it isn’t going to take them long to find enough iron to surround the bridge and stabilise it long enough for them to step through. How long do you think it will take? A few months? Less? Hell! The buildings on the planets probably have enough iron in them to to do the job for them! And in the meantime we have another thousand or so insane angels and demons pouring through. It will be enough to destroy this world— Look at this place Sammy! The one place on Earth that was working properly, and it’s just a pile of rubble! How long do you think it’s gonna take for them to spread out? To take out every other city still standing?

“Sammy,” Dean’s voice softened, “in the long run, our lives—” and he held up their joined hands for Sam to see, “mean nothing. Not if we can save everyone else. Across so many worlds.” He squeezed Castiel's hand and Castiel wondered when they had become so convinced that they were going to die in this process. All of them; Bobby looked resigned and beyond sad and Sam looked ready to argue and fight, refusing to give up.

He looked across and met Dean's eyes. They were full of love, and the sadness that they had only had a few days together. He nodded.

“So. We need power?”

-

“There,” Castiel said, pointing at a building even further to the South than their current position. It was butted up against the Bridge, solid looking, with heavy gray walls stained green with algae from the rain and disuse.

“It's too far,” said Sam doubtfully.

“But, it's the only building in sight with power cables intact,” Bobby stated.

“If we run for it...” Dean left the sentence hanging.

“Bobby has weaponry,” Castiel offered, having watched the older man load up holster after holster with guns and a huge number of things he didn't recognize.

Bobby grunted in acknowledgement.

Castiel found himself with a hand wrapped around the handle of a gun and his eyes on the far-off building. “I could fly us again—” he began, looking at the three men, and the enormous stretch of gray flat ground between their position and their goal. They didn't even know if it would be of use, if the power was working, if the controls were there— Flying them would be much safer, but—

The three other men exchanged looks between them, clearly such long studies of each other that they didn’t need to make the exchange audible. “No time,” Bobby broke, “we can run it quicker. No one'll be looking out for us, we're small enough targets, clearly human, so the soldiers and police won’t be looking out for us.”

“And you need to save your Grace,” Sam added, looking sickened and grim.

“So. We just need to avoid the dive bombing angels and the charging demons, huh?” Dean asked, an edge to his voice, acceptance there, even if he clearly prefered Castiel's plan.

“Come on.” Sam stated, a determined edge in his voice now, taking a look around the room at his friends, his family, before peering across the space between the buildings.

Castiel had hardly blinked before he saw Sam's long legged form take off, followed by the stumpy run of Bobby, much slower. Dean followed, his bow legs making Castiel smile briefly, sadly, before Castiel made himself run too.

He was winded too fast, unaccustomed to any such movement, his muscles wasted and tiring to easily, his lungs and heart only used to working with pain and fear. These were things his Grace could not bolster, and yet he threw himself after the Winchesters and Bobby Singer, ignoring the pain in his chest and knees and the hitching of his breath.

They ran, keeping one eye on the hordes of uniformed men firing weapons at the angels and demons yammering and throwing their weight around. He was pleased that Bobby had handed them all ear plugs, which blocked the wails of the off-worlders, rendering their songs useless. They appeared to be in luck too, that none of the mind altering creatures were using their skills.

They would have lost too soon otherwise.

He ran.

His first step was like a signal, breaking the comparative calm.

First came an errant fire ball skittering across the ground, leaving in its wake puddles of red hot molten stone. It ran through the space between him and Dean causing him to take a flying leap over the puddle, his landing jarring his bones.

He had a moment to suck in a breath before a set of halo spines from a zafi’irara spattered across the space, one hitting Bobby in the leg. The old man simply pulled it from himself while still on the move.

A huge bat-like winged demon fell from the sky, screeching, with its claws held high, blood falling free with it. It landed, clipping Sam, throwing him to the ground. Dean increased his pace even further lengthening the gap between him and Castiel. Dean fired his gun as he ran, loosing bullet after bullet into the creature’s head until it stopped screaming and stilled in a splatter of shining blood. Castiel caught up to them, heaving breath, and managed to pulse enough _heal_ into Sam for him to get back on his feet, to get running again.

He tried his best to keep up, but Dean and Sam outstripped him again, Dean throwing a pleading look over his shoulder, a fearful glance at the sky above Castiel’s head, sending him forward even faster. He tried to run, but his muscles just weren’t toned, even with the shot of Grace thrumming through him, he lagged behind, even with Dean slowing up to stay closer. He had spent too long in captivity. One by one they disappeared into the black maw of the building they were aiming for, first Bobby, guns firing, then Dean, and Sam. Castiel became aware of the screaming of the angel above his head, and he felt a surge of Grace to his weak and shaking leg muscles—

He didn't stop, fearing the angel at his back. He could feel the power of it, it’s sour Grace dragging at him, making him want to stop and allow himself to be made a meal of.

He felt the temptation well up, finally too strong, all of its attention on him and his ragged run. His resolve failed the moment before Bobby's gun blazed just feet from his head— The compulsion stopped the moment he heard the wet thump of the angel hitting the ground.

Castiel hurtled into the building, almost tumbling through the Bridge, Dean only just catching him by his shirt where he himself had come to a skidding halt.

Dean turned to watch as Bobby squared his shoulders where he stood, in position by the door, weaponry dragging him down. Castiel saw Sam as he ran straight for the terminal, slamming his ID through the slot and accessing the power system. He let out a shout of success and Castiel heard the hum of power start up through the secondary cables feeding a control room to the south.

It was time.

Dean took Castiel's hand. There were tears in his eyes, the gloss reflecting the Bridge’s light, gold and purple burning away the green.

Castiel nodded. They didn’t need words.

They placed their free palms against the cold wall, feeling the power burning in each crack that he had created merely one day before. He already missed the feeling of Dean's arms around him, that hum of warm Wroth in his chest.

He felt that hum, that Wroth, as Dean opened up and started pushing undefined, panicked energy into the Bridge. Castiel started smiting, thinking the words _die, kill, slay, end, break, go, be gone, die, die, die._

He felt the pull in their clasped hands as Dean's Wroth picked up the song, meeting his Grace and pulling it along, racing it. The heat bloomed between them, pouring forth into the Bridge.

He was no longer aware of anything else, just the attempt to bring to an end the war, Dean's hand held so fast in his, that their Wroth, their Grace, mixed and became indistinguishable.

He looked to his left at the flawed and perfect man that he had given his heart to. He had been the first to show him love since his family had been taken from him.

Dean's green gaze fell on him and he smiled, his eyes lighting up gold as the Wroth filled him, matching the Grace that poured forth from his own eyes.

-

“Dean!” Sam screamed above the noise of fighting, of gunshots, of wailing angels and bellowing demons and the reports of Bobby's guns and tasers and falling bodies, his voice just making it into Dean’s consciousness. “It's not enough!”

Castiel turned to look behind them, where he still stood gripping Dean’s hand, his palm forcing energy into the Bridge, glowing blue all over. Dean followed his gaze. Sam looked frantic, smashing buttons on the terminal, sweating. But it was Bobby's form that got their attention, their hands still pressed against the Bridge, the power flowing through them, from who knew where.

Bobby was stationary, standing with his back to them, a gun held loosely in his fist by his side.

What they saw beyond Bobby’s lax form, they didn't need to speak for understanding to flow between them, not with the mix of the Grace and Wroth burning through their veins. The alphas, of both the menenth, and the tak. Advancing. Adorned with gold, burning bright, stalking shoulder to shoulder in front of an army—

Dean looked at Sam, at Bobby, but then his gaze landed on Castiel’s glowing blue, beautiful eyes once more.

Understanding, like the moment that his gaze had first lit upon the stars, fell through them.

As one they stepped into the Bridge.

-

Dean had never been within the Bridge, and through the connection between their tightly clasped hands he could feel Castiel's distress at being within it once again.

He cast wonder-filled eyes around him—

Immediately around them was the same swirling mass of golden light, just like the Bridge appeared close up from the outside—just as cracked now as it had been since Castiel’s interference, just as sickening to look at. To Castiel's back was a slowly swirling mass of red and orange, too hard to look at, ceaseless, endless. He twisted to look behind himself and found the Blue-wards direction; wildly fluctuating, shimmering, spinning and nauseating.

Lumps and shards, spots and pulses shifted within the mass, sometimes a figure flew past. He knew, until they chose a direction they were held in stasis, even in the untamed Bridge.

“Cas,” he whispered aloud, and despite the howling, screaming noise; stuttering static, he could hear the sound. Castiel's eyes met his sadly, lovingly. And he knew this was it.

They leaned in to each other, shutting out the light show, and kissed. Castiel's tongue swiped over his, delving deep, every movement screaming love. They were close, physically, mentally; their Wroth, their Grace intwined. They were one. He could hear Castiel’s thoughts through their kiss, his thoughts that screamed _die_ as the blue-Grace light of his eyes flared, illuminating his own closed, Wroth-filled ones.

He synced his thoughts with Castiel's again, finding it easier and easier to pulse out that pounding heat. It felt like fire, an electrical storm, and he threw it out from himself wordlessly, allowing the flames and the bolts of power to mingle and ensnare Castiel's Grace, this smooth flowing, gaseous-liquid thing that shifted and held onto him, his power, his heart.

They continued kissing, the need for breath gone, for sight, smell, sound. Only taste and touch remained, the heat where their mouths met, and the firm hold they had on each other's hands.

A thought drifted into his mind as he felt the first pull. _I love you Dean Winchester. Thank you for saving me._

Another tug came, but they refused to be torn apart, their tears melding where their faces met. _I love you Cas. You saved me too._

A jolt forced their lips from one another but their eyes met and held. Their hands tangled together just as tightly as before, their mingled power still pouring from them. Castiel was mouthing the words he had said into Dean's mind, over and over again. Dean found he was doing the same, tears flowing freely down his face. Anther pull came as they both found their power waning. “More!” he yelled to the screaming air, sound rushing back with a fury.

Their hands clenched, hurting, as they threw out the last dregs of their power, burning their veins on the way through, the glow surrounding them pulsing out with fury, hurt, love, peace, terror, worry, adoration, resignation.

Castiel whimpered, pulling Dean back against the tugging, the constant pulling dragging them in opposite directions. He fixed his mouth to Dean's one last time—

Then he was torn away, almost ripped from Dean, their hands only just linked, as they still pushed out the last of their power.

As the very last trickle ebbed from them, the last _DIE!,_ screamed into the void, the tug jerked one last time.

They were ripped apart.

The last thing Dean saw was Castiel's blue pulsing eyes, glistening with tears, flying from him down the tunnel of goading, laughing red as he was dragged blindly into the blue.

-

Dean didn't want to open his eyes. All he wanted to was to remember Castiel's, those twin pinpoints of glowing blue, fading, tears being pulled from his face, hanging in the air as he was pulled from him into the vortex.

He wanted to be dead.

Why wasn't he dead?

He felt hot tears leak from his closed eyes as Sam's voice cut through the memory.

“Dean!”


	18. Chapter 18

Blue pinpoints disappearing into the red maelstrom. Blue pinpoints disappearing into the red maelstrom.

It was all that was revolving through his mind.

Until a stabbing pain in his back made itself known. It was niggling, and lasted too long and Sam’s hands were poking him and prodding him, and his voice was still yelling his name over and over.

“I've lost him Sammy. I've lost him,” he sobbed out, suddenly realising that he was on Earth.

He was wrenched up into a hug, pulled from the ground, with the strong arms of his brother wrapped around his limp body, the stone, or whatever it was, dislodged from his back.

“You did it, Dean, you did it. It's over, there’s no war,” Sam's voice sounded gently in his ear, repeating the words over and over.

“It's over?” he finally comprehended his brother’s words and struggled to sit up, expecting to find his body broken, but there was no pain, except from the bruise on his back.

“It's over Dean. The Bridge is closed. For good.” Something in Sam’s tone made him finally open his eyes.

Instead of the cracked veneer of the Bridge, gold and purple, he saw a mire of spoiled mud through the missing end wall of the building they sat in. A worrying flatness to the scene, the mud slick, already, with the never ending rain.

“The Bridge… Is gone?”

He looked around, to Bobby, sitting hunched in the other missing wall, this one facing the Complex's inner wall. Beyond Bobby's panting form lay a multitude of corpses, human, angel and demon.

Something was missing.

“Where is the fighting?”

He sat up properly and pushed Sam’s fussing hands away from him, pushing himself to his feet. He staggered forward, towards Bobby, resting a palm on his shoulder where he sat propped against a fallen beam. “Wh- Where the hell is everyone?” he asked, bewildered as he viewed the scene.

He couldn’t have been out long. There were huge numbers of soldiers, and the Complex's police, all standing vacant, stationary, bewildered.

There was not a single living angel or demon in sight.

-

Dean was listless. It had been three days since he had lost Castiel.

It may have been three days since he had won an almost-war, prevented it from ever happening, but that was incidental. He had lost his angel.

And Bobby? Bobby had lost the use of his legs—

And Dean could hardly make himself get out of the bed he and Castiel had last shared. The world was saved. But Bobby could not walk. And Castiel was gone.

It did not feel like winning.

The news had come in thick and fast after the blast. Some of it, first hand, from Bobby and Sammy, but some from Rufus and the official news on the radio.

When Dean and Castiel had succeeded, and the Bridge had collapsed in on itself sending out a huge shockwave, Sam and Bobby had only been saved, being _so_ close to the Bridge, by Dean.

Dean was completely unaware how, but according them them, he had come flying out, thrown back onto the hard ground and put up some sort of unconscious force field, deflecting the evaporating power of the Bridge from hurting his family.

Anyone else standing within about fifteen feet of the Bridge had died. Everyone within the Complex's plaza, was just knocked down or blown a few feet. There were no other fatalities, despite the damage to the building of the Complex itself, which was comprehensive.

It had taken a day or two for the next lot of reports to come in, Sam asking questions of whoever he could while Bobby was assessed in the hospital.

Not only had every angel and demon that had come to invade disappeared, but every single non-human had seemingly been erased from the planet.

That had caused great celebration amongst the religious community, but everywhere else? They were looking at crashing economies and a huge employment deficit again.

On top of that, every human that had moved off world had been sent back, popping back into place from their corresponding position on their previous world.

Some died at sea, others from exposure on mountains that weren't there on their preferred worlds. Colonists were throwing fits, because all of their hard work making a new world was being undone and there was no way to get back, they were stuck on the shithole that was Earth.

That news had finally injected an ounce of warmth into Dean's otherwise cold chest. Maybe Castiel wasn't dead, but simply on Hath.

And then a memory of their conversation in the hospital had come to him. Of plague and death. And Dean had sunk further, knowing that if the man who had finally given him something worth getting out of bed for had indeed survived their tumble through the Bridge, then he had been sent to his death on a sick world.

Sam tried to cheer him up with news that the Government, those who had survived, were finally beginning to look inward once again. Without the Bridge, they were finally made aware of the problems in their country, on their world, and a meeting had already been called. The first bills to be discussed; environment, education, and agriculture & farming.

Dean could not find it in him to care.

On their return to Bobby's he had slunk down to the cellar, to Castiel's room. He had closed and locked the door, and collapsed onto the bed, still stained with their mixed come, the scent of the man still suffusing the pillows.

He had left Sam to look after the now wheelchair-bound Bobby.

He had cried and mourned his loss.

-

On day four Dean surfaced again but did not go back to the room he had shared with Castiel. The man he had loved, ever so briefly, would not want him to wallow, and certainly not in come-covered sheets.

With a lump in his throat he had thrown the sheets, and all of his clothes in to wash, already missing Castiel's scent, knowing it had faded two days before, but not willing to let go.

“When you heading out?” Bobby asked gruffly, making Dean jump. Sam had left that morning, telling them that he had to return to the Complex and help rebuild. He wanted to be a part of the rebuilding of their world.

Dean had not been able to watch him go, and it had really been for Bobby that he had risen. “I don't know, Bobby. I'm not sure I want to go back,” he sighed. “Can I?” he gestured to Bobby, who scowled, then, “What is there for me there anyway?”

He thought of the shit-covered streets, they very ones on which he had found Cas. “I helped a handful of people, Bobby. I get that, but...” He just stopped staring at the wooden floor of the living room.

“But you feel like you found somethin' worthwhile, that you'da followed to the ends of the Earth, and you did, and now it's gone, and now you don't know what to do with yourself,” Bobby completed for him.

Dean nodded morosely.

Bobby hummed. “Okay, well, while you work through that shit, why don't you git outside and start picking up that shit you threw across my land, huh? And I’m gonna need help pulling damn potatoes soon, seeing as I gave my damn legs to the cause.”

Dean looked up at him in surprise. “Wha?”

Bobby scowled. “You don't remember throwin' every piece of scrap metal I own in a fifty foot radius across my yard?” he folded his arms, all mock sternness. “Well I do. And, if I'm gonna get this place turned around while I’m stuck in this god-forsaken chair, I'm gonna need to melt that shit down, gotta get those old junkers turned into something useful, and it looks like my mobility ain’t want it used to be.”

Dean stood slack jawed with the order, but the concept felt right somehow. Good. Honest. Real work, cleaning and tidying, helping Bobby, the man he had wished more than once was his father. He owed Bobby that much. He had already cleaned the world of everything that didn't technically belong here once, unwittingly, by filling the rent between the worlds; why not start cleaning up his messes on the actual planet too?

“Yeah. Okay Bobby. I can do that.”

“Good. Then you can help me with the beer. Needs rackin' into bottles. Then you can build a damn ramp for me.”

“Yes sir,” he answered with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

-

In the three months since Dean and Castiel closed the Bridge, Dean had only returned to the city once.

After dropping by Benny's flat to collect his possessions, like many humans were doing with their now absent off-worlder friends, Dean had dropped into the Precinct and told them he was leaving. He didn't even bother to give them a reasonable notice period; they hadn't cared when he worked there, and they were grateful to see the back of him.

Dean had grinned, though, when a Sergeant from the Complex's internal police force had walked in the door and yelled at Gordon for everyone to hear. Dean had snuck out before shit had hit the fan. Walt had already been brought into the argument before he’d had a chance to get fully away.

He was pleased that the Government were trying to get America back on track, but he was more pleased he wouldn't be a part of it in that way.

He had emptied his apartment, and driven back to Bobby's, chucking his stuff into the cold cellar, now no longer needed as a refuge; there were no off-worlders to need Bobby's help any longer.

He couldn't face sleeping down there though, not without Castiel.

He spent every day either working the land for Bobby, getting his farm from glorified garden, to something actually productive on a much larger scale, and working in the newly erected garage, where he cannibalized the old trucks and cars and broken farm machinery and built new vehicles, capable of cutting drainage channels and turning the heavy soil.

With his time freed up and his mobility curtailed to the paved tracks Dean had built, Bobby started talking about setting up a school to make use of his library of books.

_Singer’s_ became the place everyone went for working farm machinery. Dean was busy.

But he wasn't happy, or even particularly fulfilled. He knew he was doing good, helping people to finally start to rebuild on a sustainable level, feeding those who still toiled in the cities, providing a service that was desperately needed.

But, he missed Castiel. It was like a raw ache in his chest. And he hated himself for it. He had barely known the man, and yet he could not see himself happy without him.

He was out in the garage, stripping back the rust from a practically prehistoric seed drill when he caught himself thinking of Castiel again.

He kicked himself, because those warm thoughts only ever led to one conclusion. The man who had given him something to live for, a direction and a purpose, was dead. Either torn to shreds in the closing Bridge, or thrown out on his homeworld, and left to die from a plague that had ended his race.

And, with each passing day, that tiny glow of hope that Castiel had survived and the virus, or whatever it was that had killed an entire planet of the most powerful angels, was dormant, faded. Castiel was either stuck there, alone, a slow, painful, lonely death awaiting him, or his Grace was gone, and the result was the same.

It would be better if he had died in the Bridge. Any hope that he could still escape under the power of his own wings had long since died.

At first, Dean had entertained the hope that Castiel was just resting before he flew back and found him, loved him again, but it had been three months. Castiel had been healed and strong enough after a lifetime of rape and imprisonment to destroy a rift between worlds after merely ten days.

Three months?

Dean knew Castiel was dead.

It was unfair that he wasn't too, that he had to go on, had to stay alive for Bobby and Sam.

Once again he was living because someone else had told him he ought to.

He shook his head and started attacking the rusted chassis with wire wool even harder, shredding his knuckles even through the heavy gloves he was wearing. He needed to get this done, as the farmer owned a whole lot of land and a whole lot of farm machinery. Bobby wanted to set up a contract, so Dean had to do the work well, and quickly.

He sighed, hating that he still had to dance to another's tune, even though he wasn't good for anything else.

He idly wondered about using his Wroth to deflect the rust away, but having not touched that element of himself since he had woken up with Cas lost to him, he figured he would probably just deflect the entire machine away through the tin wall and out into the rain.

He stopped at that, noticing that, for the first time in months, it wasn't raining. The lack of the constant noise was almost deafening.

He dropped the ball of wire wool to the floor and ran out into the yard looking up at the sky and squinting at the unaccustomed brightness. The sky was pale gray as far as he could see, until he looked toward where the Bridge used to be, where the heavier clouds were stark on the horizon, a smear of rain sitting underneath them.

“Well, I'll be—” Bobby's voice interrupted.

Dean hummed in agreement. They had both experienced their fair share of rainless days over the past few years, but the painful glow in the sky? Behind layers of shifting cloud? That was new. It may have a long way to go yet, but seeing the sun, however weak, was something to celebrate.

“Beer?” Bobby asked, as if reading his mind. He nodded and Bobby wheeled himself along the hard track and up the ramp into his house. Their house. Inside, Bobby handed him a bottle and he opened the cap, swallowing down the golden liquid within. They sat on the porch, Dean sitting next to Bobby on the top step, ignoring their commitments and duties for the rest of the day, just sitting outside, and staring at the puddles beginning to dry.

It was Dean's favourite day since the day he lost Castiel.

-

Dean made an inarticulate grunt of pure irritation and anger down the phone.

“And, good morning to you too, dear brother.” Sam replied with far too happy a tone for six thirty in the morning.

“Fuck off, unless you have magically re-discovered the recipe for pie, I don't want to know.”

Dean could _hear_ Sam frown. “We never lost the recipe for pie, Dean. You made Bobby apple pie last week. You told me, you were all proud. It was kind of cute actually.”

Dean grunted again.

“Look, I was thinking about coming over today. I found something interesting that I want Bobby to look at. Is that cool? Doesn't ruin any dates you've going on or anything?”

Dean actually laughed at that. It wasn't a happy sound. Sam had taken to jibing him about staying single. Three months, two weeks and four days wasn't long enough to get over Castiel.

Dean was pretty certain that a life time wasn't going to be long enough.

“Yeah, no, you're good. Bring pie!” and he hung up, rolling back under the covers until Bobby hit the floor of his room from beneath with the wooden broom handle, letting him know he had to get up, or get no breakfast.

He liked breakfast. Bobby made a killer omelette.

So, he got up.

-

“So, do you think it's accurate?” Sam asked Bobby, his eyes fixed earnestly on the old man.

“I think it’s about an accurate as any of them prophesies,” he shrugged and Dean switched his gaze back to his brother who was practically vibrating with eagerness.

“But what if—?” Bobby waved him off and dragged the book out of Sam's lap to look over it more thoroughly.

“What if it _is_ accurate huh? What if you take it to the new guy—?”

Sam snorted. “Governor, they're calling him a governor now. His name is Carver Edlund.”

Bobby grunted, “No wonder I can't remember his damn name. So, then what? You go to Edlund and tell him that you think you can reopen the Bridge based on a prophesy by a five hundred year old angel who ain't always been too reliable— Although, I have to admit, dead on in some cases.” At that he shot a look at Dean.

“Ah! Ah—” Sam cut in with a finger held high and a smug grin on his face. “Re-open it safely and about a quarter of the size if my calculations are correct.”

“And without a nuke I hope?” Dean finally chipped in, staring incredulously at his potentially insane brother.

Sam just nodded rapidly as Bobby continued. “And then what, kid? The government will just do what it did before. The Complex will only look to the other worlds, and Earth will be left to struggle along again. We're finally starting to make headway, boy. They're even cleaning up the fuckin' city, Rufus told me yesterday, so you want to compromise all that? Potentially let another war begin? For what?”

Sam looked a little chastised. “But— People have lost family.” Sam shot a look at Dean this time. “Children were ripped from their human parents because the Bridge didn't discriminate when it threw people back home. There are people on Earth whose partners were off-worlders on new colonies, and that’s all gone. Not to mention the scientific possibilities—”

“Not to mention you're out a job.” Bobby raised an eyebrow.

“Am not,” Sam groused, secure in the knowledge that the Complex was in need of every ounce of legal help it could get.

“So, you're saying I should sit on it?” Sam finally asked, looking between Dean and Bobby, clearly thinking that Dean would be on his side.

“I think you need better reasons than science to rip a hole between worlds, Sam,” Dean said, flat and low. “And, I'm not sure orphans and broken families are a good enough reason either. You don’t even know if the angels and demons made it back. Just because the humans did...”

He _had_ to get up and go then, the pain in his chest palpable at the words he had just uttered. He left the house, quietly and calmly, and jogged through the light rain to the garage.

He just sat and stared at the wall, knowing he had said the right thing, while his guts screamed at him that he deserved to be alone and miserable, because if he couldn't get the man he loved back, then he didn’t care if anyone else could either.

He silenced that thought. That wasn't the reasoning. The rift was closed and Bobby was right, Earth was rebuilding finally, or at least America was. Due to the Government looking to other worlds, communication over seas had faltered. Most other countries had already picked themselves up, cities empty yes, under fed and poorly educated, but at least they had sorted out regular refuse collections and mended the sewers.

They could not afford to drop back into the way things had been before.

If they re-opened the Bridge, it had to be for the right reasons. Dean couldn't think of anything that constituted a reason right enough for that to be valid.

-

Dean was sharpening blades for the farm machines, the ringing of the metal on the stone regular and therapeutic, when he heard a thump and a crash out among the wrecks in the yard.

He put aside the blade, then leapt up to help, wondering what the hell Bobby was doing in the wrecks in the first place when he heard it— “Fucking rain!” a deep voice growled out as another clang sounded, accent thick, like honey and illegal diesel.

Dean stopped. His heart in his throat and his guts in his feet.

He stepped slowly out into the yard, the rain, indeed, storming down on his head.

He nearly fell to his knees when, outside he saw nothing, no one.

Great, now he was going fucking insane, he thought.

A cleared throat had him jerking up straight, tears stopping before they had a chance to develop. “I am really fucking unimpressed with your terrible description of vaccinations, Dean,” Castiel's voice growled out from behind him.

He turned slowly, terrified the illusion would be gone when he faced it.

Dark hair, flattening in the rain, natural cloth t-shirt, held together with toggles at the shoulders, sides and sleeves, the same jeans he had been wearing when he was torn from him, and bare feet.

It was the jeans more than anything that had Dean moving.

He was practically glowing; broad, muscled, his skin golden and his smile so wide, his eyes twinkling. A raw scar peeked through the draped sleeves of the top, but Dean didn't take in any more as he bowled into Cas, wrapping him up in his arms, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he breathed in deep at the man’s neck, sobbing with relief and joy.

“I missed you too,” Castiel whispered into his hair, and the angel finally sought out Dean's lips.

The sensation filled Dean's senses, the softness, the warmth, the hot slick slide of his tongue over Castiel's. Cas pulled away, holding Dean at arms length, he didn't even notice the whining sound he made.

“You look like shit. Let’s get you inside, huh?” Castiel said around a smile.

Dean just nodded and allowed Castiel to lead him back inside the garage where he had come from.

-

Castiel tried to explain to Dean why he had been gone nearly two seasons, but he didn’t get a chance. With a groaning, whining sob, the sorely diminished man in front of him latched on to his mouth and was pushing his hands up under his shirt.

He had missed this so badly, not the sex, as such, although the times with Dean had been perfect, but the heat, the touch, the kisses. Being wanted and loved. The feel of Dean’s Wroth against his Grace.

The kiss was bruising, teeth clacking, and Dean's tongue rough and demanding against his own, but it was filled with disbelief and passion and an aching need. “I thought you were dead,” Dean whispered against his mouth and Castiel froze briefly.

His Grace screamed to him, singing with the urge to hold the man before him. The man who had tears sliding down his face. His Grace wanted him to allow it to intertwine once more with Dean’s Wroth, to make it better again. To make everything better. He knew his absence had hurt Dean, that much was obvious, if his gaunt frame and sallow skin were anything to go by, but he had not once thought that he would believe him dead.

He had been filled with the knowledge that the man who had his heart was alive on Earth, he had assumed that Dean had _felt_ it too. As Dean's mouth closed on his again with a needy groan, he remembered that Dean was not like him; he was not like anyone.

He pulled back from the kiss and smiled at Dean's whine of protest. He shushed him gently and pulled him deeper into the building filled with half built and naked cars, deciding to address Dean's location and choice of occupation at a later point.

For now he needed to show Dean that he had missed him and that he loved him too.

In a warm corner in the back, next to a table and a small electrical fire, he pulled Dean to the hard packed ground, snagging some blankets from the top of another car-type-thing on the way.

Dean's eyes were wide, but there was a hint of a smile as Castiel spread the material onto the ground, and pushed Dean down, following immediately afterwards, taking Dean into his arms and kissing his neck.

“I have thought about you every day, Dean,” he whispered into his hair where he kissed his forehead and cheeks, jaw and neck.

He laid Dean down, fumbling with the fastening on his jeans before undoing his own and freeing both of their erections, relishing the gasp Dean made as the cool air hit his fevered skin.

Castiel leaned down, and without any warning, drew Dean's cock into his mouth for the first time, groaning in pleasure as Dean's rock hard, silky soft length filled his mouth, sat heavy on his tongue and rocked to the back of his throat. He swiped his tongue down the length, sucking lightly, remembering how Dean had done it for him, humming as Dean bucked up slightly and smiling as the part-human twined the fingers of both hands in his rain-damp hair.

Dean tasted musky, slightly unwashed, and more perfect than he could have imagined.

He sucked down, taking him as far in as he could manage, knowing, now, that it didn't need to hurt, and he swallowed, eliciting a loud moan from the man who he loved.

“Cas!” Dean gasped, and the sound had never been more welcome. “I—I'm not gonna last—” he panted out, his hips moving in tiny aborted thrusts. Castiel grinned as much as he could and sucked harder, wrapping his fingers in the man's public hair and squeezing lightly at his heavy balls.

He felt them draw up almost instantly, and one swipe of his tongue over the smooth head later, Dean was pumping his mouth full of come.

He swallowed every drop, relishing the tart, tangy taste.

He removed his mouth, but licked stripes up Dean's cock until it softened and Dean pushed him away with amused “Stop!”

When he looked up, Dean's face was flushed in the low lighting, pink and beautiful with a predatory look in his eye. “Your turn,” he whispered, his voice raspy.

Before Castiel had a chance to react, he found himself flung to his belly on the floor, his aching cock trapped under him, perfect and unpleasant all at once. He looked over his shoulder when he felt Dean's fingers at the waist of his jeans, pulling them down. He heard a soft groan when his naked ass was bared. “Commando, Cas, really?” he stayed silent, not understanding. He had kind of missed Dean's constant, strange chatter that never meant what it ought to.

He yelped, banishing all other thoughts, as Dean dragged him up by the hips, leaving his hole exposed. He clenched, and almost tried to escape, but Dean's soft fingers were there, caressing his skin, stroking his scarred cheeks and nuzzling against his upper thigh.

“You're so beautiful Cas,” he felt whispered into his skin, just a moment before he felt Dean's burningly hot tongue lave over his hole. He made an undignified high-pitched noise at the sensation, but didn't mind, as it made Dean chuckle, little puffs of hot air gliding over him, before he brushed his fingertips over his hole and licked another long stripe over him, finishing in a kiss against his rim.

He repeated the action again and again, always pressing a kiss to him before beginning to poke his tongue into the dip, opening him slightly then licking another long hot stripe . Dean kept his hands away from Castiel’s throbbing cock, bobbing between his legs, untouched, as he licked again, delving his tongue in just a little further.

“Dean,” he breathed out, feeling his Grace stretch to encompass Dean, and finding the man's Wroth stretching to meet him in return.

Another hot lick, another kiss, his tongue pushed into him, wriggling against his rim. The utter joy in his Wroth, and Castiel came, his neglected cock pulsing spurt after spurt of come against the blanket under him, Dean's tongue still licking inside of him as he clenched down and gasped out in pleasure.

It felt like they stayed there frozen while he came for an age, muscles clamped, nothing else mattering while Dean's tongue was in his ass.

With a groan though, he was finally spent, and Dean pressed a final kiss against him before rolling him over, away from the puddle of come, and leaning on him, his naked groin nestled up against Castiel's naked hip, arms wrapped tight, and a smile evident on his face where it was pressed to his chest.

He listened as Dean's breathing slowed again, and he ran his fingers through his hair, holding on to what was his.

-

“Dean?”

Dean murmured something unintelligible against his neck in the dark. He could hear the rain easing off outside the shed. It was getting cold, even under the rough blanket he had finally pulled up over their forms.

“I want to apologise. For taking so long to come back, for letting you think I was dead,” he began, and felt Dean stiffen next to him.

“I was sick for a long time,” at that Dean's head poked up, hair all over the place, a wild look of fear in his eyes. “I— No, I'd better start from the beginning.” He let his head drop back onto the hard ground, and stroked Dean's head until he rested it against his chest again.

“When we were torn apart I was flung through the Bridge the wrong way, toward the Fire.” He pulled a face, not knowing how to really explain the next part. “Do you remember about the Nothingness?” He felt Dean nod hesitantly. “I was thrown there again, I can't even tell you how terrifying that was. But, it didn't take long and I was flung out the other side, and I hurtled to Hath. I guess it was the quickest route or something. I did not know the worlds formed a full circle before then.”

Dean’s fingers were gripping his waist hard, but Castiel did not shake him off, revelling in the sweetness of his touch, no matter how fear filled it was. “The planet was lush and full and green,” he smiled, then huffed out a laugh, “and not empty.”

Dean looked up again astonishment on his face. “It appeared some survived the plague. Not many. A few hundred maybe? As we can fly, the inhabitants were pretty sure that there were no others. They had gathered near the Bridge, to keep an eye on it, not trusting it. But, beside them were about ten or fifteen others, including myself, who had been prisoners.”

He looked up at Dean's open mouthed face, too gaunt in the harsh light, and grinned wide and happy. “Gabe survived.” Dean let out a tiny whoop and squeezed Castiel in a tight hug, murmuring how happy he was for him.

“He's an ass,” he laughed again. “But, he was the one who had the balls to suggest we try the vaccination. I told him about it when the first of us, who had never been on the planet, started getting sick. You never said that we would all get sick with the damn thing before we got better, you bastard.”

Dean looked up at him and winced. “It's not done that way now, Cas, not sharing blood… And, I didn't know!” He looked a strange mix of relieved and worried.

He hummed in response. “We only lost two. An elder, he was very old and weak, and passed even before Gabe and I tried it on ourselves. And a young woman who had had a similar life to mine— She may not have survived even if the Bridge had not collapsed, throwing her from her prison to Hath and its sickness. We mourned their loss, but the rest of us survived. After more than a season of sweating and coughing.” He said the last with a fond anger in his voice. He would have pretended it to be Dean's fault more, except the man looked haunted and full of sorrow.

“Thanks to you Dean— You saved our lives.” He leaned up and kissed him, before dropping his head back.

“Once Gabe and I were up and about again, he got my tale from me, and told me his in return. I...won't tell it now, but he wanted me to take him to the Nothingness.”

He huffed out a breath, but continued. “I— What we found was amazing, Dean. But, I don't want you to think I simply came back because I want your help or want company… If you don't want to— I will stay here with you for the rest of my life if you say so, if you ask me—”

Dean's eyes were confused, hopeful, warm, overflowing with love and intrigue. “But…?”

He sat up, helping Dean to do the same, mourning the loss of the man's soft belly, now flat and hard, almost concave. He hoped Dean would allow him to heal him, as much as Dean had healed him in those first few days.

“We found another Bridge.” He had his palms wrapped around Dean's upper arms, feeling the sinewy muscle tense under his gaze.

“I— What?”

“When I was thrown through, there was nothing, when Gabe and I returned, now that we knew it linked our Wind-ward with the Demon's Fire-ward…” He laughed at the memory. “Its no longer a nothingness…. It's everything. Just like the Bridge.”

“When you step in it's the same, two directions except the colours, the directions, are more feelings, hiding on the edge of vision.”

He locked his gaze with Dean's. “We found Earth and Water, Dean.”

Dean simply stared at him, mouth a little parted.

“Will you come with us?”

Dean shrugged, seeming to consider, and Cas’ heart leapt into his mouth. “Well, I know how much you like the rain, Cas,” Dean paused, eyes glinting, “but all things considered I think we should probably take a look…”

Castiel’s heart leapt in joy as Dean’s deadpan expression broke into a dumb grin, a smile of amazed wonderment. It made his eyes glow with excitement, _finally,_ as well as all the love he had seen there from the first moment he had returned. Dean grinned wider, before he tackled him back to the ground, holding him tight with a laugh and a kiss.


	19. Epilogue

“I distinctly remember you saying that wings are only showed to family, to lovers,” Dean muttered, brushing shoulders with Castiel as he squinted up into the wide blue sky, the burning sun at his back.

“They are,” Cas shrugged, “I told you he’s an ass. But, well, we need them out to fly longitudinally— According to him, the self-proclaimed ‘Grand Keeper of all things hath’,” he said snarkily, raising his fingers in air quotes which made Dean snigger. “We also needed to fly in battle in times long past. I think he’s making it up but…”

Castiel glanced up too, watching his brother fly loop-the-loops, whooping at the top of his lungs. His wings were like Cas’ only in form. They were not so large, but otherwise, they looked like billowing gas, just like his lover’s did. Only, Gabriel’s were gold, yellow, orange, amber, white— They sparkled in the sun’s glare. If Dean wasn’t totally enraptured by Castiel’s wings, he might have had to admit aloud that Gabriel’s wings were almost beautiful.

“You ready then?” the slighter angel yelled from above them, and Castiel sighed, dropping his gaze back to Dean.

They wore a mix of Castiel’s native clothing and Dean’s; sturdy, practical, and they both had bags slung over their backs.

Dean nodded. He was ready. They all were.

Castiel reached and grabbed Dean’s hand, lacing their fingers together. After two weeks together, whole, healthy and happy, Dean was beginning to get used to the surge of Wroth in his veins each time they touched.

Castiel took a breath and Dean felt it when Cas stretched his wings out into that invisible place that meant he could step from one world to another. The new Bridge was everywhere in the Nothingness, they had to step through from the planet they were on; the last Wind-ward planet of them all.

Castiel nodded firmly and they flew, Gabriel somewhere above their heads, screaming a “Yee-haww” he had somehow picked up from his two days on Earth.

Dean blinked hard as they floated in the Bridge—

It was as unlike the Bridge on Earth as it was possible to imagine; no gravity, no sound, the colour beyond the capability of his eyes, and yet he knew which direction was which.

“So, Cas, Water or Earth?” he asked, looking in either direction.

“You pick,” Castiel grinned up at him.

“I choose…

  


END


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